Dr Pumpkin Cutter explains that we could use directed radiation on the tumor remnants. Or if the facial pain returns, that would be an additional reason to consider radiation treatments. “What are the side effects of the radiation treatments”, I ponder out loud. He pauses, then hesitates slightly before explaining, “The side effects show up ten or fifteen years after treatment” then he trails off again into silence. I have an idea he’s talking cancer, but I don’t have the nerve to ask. At this point, I’m not too keen on finding out anyway. I can’t see much point in hitting that hornet’s nest with a baseball bat just so I can see what might happen. We’ll hold radiation treatments in reserve, and cross that bridge when and if we have to do so. A grade one Meningioma brain tumor like mine could stay dormant for a year, for ten years, even the rest of my life. Or it could start growing again tomorrow. And there’s no way to predict what it will do. Just like the ocean, or a classroom full of kindergartners, you never turn your back on a brain tumor. So the doctor recommends I schedule an MRI and follow up visit for next year.

Meanwhile, my brain tumor will sit there like an old box of leftover dynamite that grandpa threw into the corner of a barn after he finished blowing out tree stumps. Sitting there collecting dust and long forgotten, but remaining potentially very dangerous. Maybe it will go off in a week, maybe it will blow in five years, or just maybe it will still be there until the barn falls in due to natural causes. I’ve heard it said that we all carry within us the seeds of our own destruction. This usually refers to someone’s tendency towards ultimately self-destructive personal behavior. But in my case the seeds are not a metaphor; mine are very real indeed. The seeds of my own destruction are stuck so tightly to the roof of Meckel’s Cave that even a surgeon’s knife couldn’t scrape them off. This is something I will have to learn to accept and live with the rest of my life.

Dr Pumpkin Cutter and I get up to leave the exam room. He extends his right hand, the very same one that was just six months ago poking around in my brain matter. It’s a hand that can work miracles and it’s steady as a rock. He smiles again. We shake hands as I thank him for all he’s done, and we head our separate ways. Chances are I’ve gotten the best news he’ll give out today. Cases like mine are the ones that keep Dr Pumpkin Cutter and his team going. A few rays of sunlight coming through an otherwise solid overcast day. And though the doctor didn’t say it, I suspect he was thinking it: You’re one lucky son of a gun.

I’m at the front desk of the neurosurgery department scheduling next year’s MRI when I notice another patient emerging from an exam room and making his way up the hallway. It’s the JI Joe who was joking and carrying on with the MRI techs this morning. Except that he’s not joking and carrying on now. No, not at all. Actually he looks like he’s just taken a kick from a cow that’s knocked the wind out of him. He walks hunched over, looking down at the floor, with his wife following just behind as the floor seems to crumble out from under his feet more with each step before his wife guides him out of the waiting room. And so, I think to myself, now the real battle begins, soldier. From my seat at the checkout desk, I look across the waiting room. People have started to accumulate in the chairs, some staring off into space and some filling out paperwork. An older couple stands over by the window, facing each other in a two person huddle, each bracing the other up, and speaking in soft tones to one another. I look away, but only to have my eyes come to rest on a young couple. The young lady, clearly distressed, fills out a clipboard full of paperwork. She’s a first timer, I figure, since veterans of the neurosurgeon’s knife like me don’t fill out much paperwork when we come in for checkups. Fate has been busy here, as he is every day. He’s been reaching out with a single bony digit extended, seemingly at random tapping each one these folks on the shoulder. I’ve seen enough. It’s time for me to leave.

My skin cancer checkup isn’t until after lunch, so I drift through the hospital. All the while I’m drinking copious fluids as instructed in order to flush this morning’s injection of liquid metal free from my kidneys. Memories of my stay here come back as I pass familiar landmarks. At the main entrance I pause. The building is inhaling and exhaling people as mass crowds of humanity enter and exit the huge portal. Outside, organized chaos is in progress as vehicles turn, circle around, pause or just plain come to a dead stop in traffic at the main entrance. Add in a little bit of fresh winter ice, and you have a real show going on.

Eventually I float across the Walkway to Heaven and into Cambridge Tower. Soon, I’m in the small lobby near the elevators on the eleventh floor, the one with great views off to the northern part of Kansas City. I’m not alone in the lobby. A lady in her forties is pacing back and forth talking quietly but urgently into her cell phone. In a chair a man sits with his head in his hands, also talking quietly on a cell phone. I walk past them to the windows, but the view isn’t very compelling with a leaden sky. The phone conversations continue in the background. It’s always the same story. Somebody goes to their doctor with something that doesn’t seem too unusual. But then the doctor tells them in a serious tone, “We need to do a few more tests…”, or “I need to refer you to a specialist, he’s one of the best….” And with that not only your life but the life of your family and friends is suddenly put on hold. Everything that seemed so important just yesterday isn’t really that important anymore. You see this same story played out in all the faces you meet up here on the eleventh floor. I had intended to walk the loop and go past the room where I spent some quality time last August. Just like getting back on the horse that has bucked you off, I thought maybe walking Hell’s Hallway could be a good way of putting some of the things I’d seen behind me, the stuff that not a day passes without my mind replaying over again. But I decide today won’t be the day I do that. Maybe I’ll never to do it. I return to the elevator and punch the escape button hard.