The Shock

It starts with something that should not have happened.

Your body does something unfamiliar. Perhaps it happens once. Perhaps again.

You wonder why.

Maybe there is nothing wrong at all. Maybe you are simply curious.

But you want to know.

So you ask for an MRI.

You put in earplugs.

It is not a concert you are going to.

A needle goes into your arm. You lie down on a narrow table and slide into a metal tube.

Forty minutes.

The technician tells you to lie still.

Then you are alone with your thoughts.

The machine starts.

Loud. Mechanical. Impersonal.

You cannot move.

You cannot see what the machine sees.

So you think.

Why did that happen to me?

What are they looking at?

What if they find something?

What if they don’t?

Forty minutes can be a long time when there is nowhere for your mind to go except back to yourself.

At some point, contrast flows into your arm so the machine can see more clearly.

The noise continues.

Eventually it stops and the table slides out.

The needle comes out. You are patched up.

You look at the technician.

For the first time, it occurs to you that this person may have seen something inside your brain that you know nothing about.

You search their face.

Did they see something?

You ask.

They cannot tell you. A doctor needs to review the images.

It is the correct answer.

It tells you nothing.

So you leave.

And wait.

You check your email.

Nothing.

Later you check again.

Then the spam folder.

Did I give them the right phone number?

You check your phone for missed calls.

Nothing.

Why is it taking so long?

Then another thought.

Is it taking a long time?

What is normal?

Perhaps everything is fine.

But if everything were fine, wouldn’t they have told me?

Or perhaps the opposite is true. Perhaps they would call immediately if something were wrong.

You don’t know.

So time itself becomes another signal you cannot interpret.

You replay the MRI. The technician’s face. Their voice. A pause that probably meant nothing suddenly might mean everything.

You talk to family.

You talk to friends.

Everyone wants to help.

Someone tells you to stay positive.

How?

How do you stay positive when you don’t know what you are supposed to be positive about?

And how can someone tell you to stay positive when they are not the one lying on that table?

You know they mean well.

But they are not inside your head.

Your mind produces one what if after another.

At night they follow you into bed.

Sometimes into your dreams.

You wake up.

For a moment everything is as it was before.

Then you remember.

The symptoms.

The MRI.

The technician.

The phone.

You check again.

Nothing.

Uncertainty has become an unwanted shadow.

You can leave the hospital.

It comes with you.

Eventually the call comes.

There is a meeting.

Immediately you begin interpreting that too.

Why so soon?

Or perhaps:

Why did it take so long?

Either way, you are searching for meaning in the timing because you still do not have an answer.

Then you are shown the image.

Your brain.

And there is something there.

Something that should not be there.

You stare at it.

For days you wanted to know.

Now you know something.

But not enough.

The MRI can show where it is. It can show its size and shape.

But it cannot tell you with certainty what it is.

For that, they need tissue.

Which means surgery.

Brain surgery.

The thought is repulsive.

Someone going into your brain.

Do I really need this?

Should I see someone else?

Should I get another opinion?

How quickly do I have to decide?

And beneath those questions are the ones that have been there all along.

Why?

Why did this happen?

Was it something I did?

Something I ate?

Something I was exposed to?

Stress?

Work?

Could I have prevented it?

Should someone have noticed earlier?

Was something missed?

You search backward because you want a cause.

A cause would give you something to hold on to. It would turn something inexplicable into something that makes sense.

But searching for a cause creates its own stress.

Every possibility becomes another question.

Every memory becomes something to examine.

The search for a cause can become a search for blame.

You blame yourself.

Perhaps you blame someone else.

You search for the moment when this began.

But there may be no answer.

Perhaps there never will be.

Then comes the harder question.

Why me?

No answer.

Surgery gets closer.

Of course you are scared.

But something else keeps growing as well.

I want it out.

The thought surprises you.

Someone is going to operate on your brain and part of you is relieved.

Not because the fear has disappeared.

Because the waiting might.

You want to stop studying faces.

Stop checking email.

Stop searching the spam folder.

Stop wondering whether silence means something.

You want to stop asking questions nobody can yet answer.

You want to know.

And you want it out.

Fear on one side.

Relief on the other.

Perhaps that is the strangest part of the shock.

You are frightened by what you might learn and desperate to learn it.

You are frightened of surgery and relieved that it is finally happening.

You want an answer to why.

You want to know what comes next.

You want certainty.

It is only natural.

You are scared.

And perhaps that is what you have been searching for from the moment you first noticed something was wrong.

Certainty in an uncertain world!

Continue the journey

Next: Acceptance Is Where You…

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