At last, something about my life he could get interested in.
Hospitals have an unfortunate need to explain in advance exactly what they’re going to do to you, and Dr. Estrera was no exception. When they had me good and sedated, he gave me way more information than I wanted or needed about how—and please prepare yourself for these coming words—they would use a skull clamp to pin my head to prongs on the surgical bed, leaning me forward and to the side so they could access the right spot, and then erecting a plastic tent around me so the surgeons could see only the area of my skull they needed and nothing else.
Hell of a to-do list. But it made sense.
A disembodied patch of skull was probably far easier to drill a hole into than, ya know, a person.
Next, they’d wash my hair with Betadine solution to sterilize everything, and then they’d comb it with a sterile comb, and then they’d shave just the tiniest bit, and then they’d cut and peel a flap of my scalp back … and then they’d drill a four-inch hole in my head.
Like they were going ice fishing.
No big deal at all.
* * *
I STAYED IN the hospital for the full four days after surgery, which made me feel like I was getting my money’s worth.
I took a lot of naps. I slept partially sitting up on a bolster pillow to help with drainage. I ate a lot of Jell-O and wondered why I’d never appreciated it before.
The incisions in my scalp were sore for several days afterward. I had a few headaches and some shooting pains from time to time near the wound. My eyes got swollen enough that Dr. Nicole suggested I avoid the mirror for a while. All normal postsurgical stuff.
All in all, I felt back to my usual self surprisingly fast. The doctors were impressed with my resilience, and they chalked it up to my “youth and good health.” I took full credit for both. I even caught myself wondering if I was doing my dad proud.
By Sunday, my last day there, I was feeling so good, I felt silly for the way I’d resisted the surgery. In fact, I felt so good so fast, I had to remind myself I was an invalid.
I was just getting discharge instructions for the next day—things like no alcohol, no driving for three weeks, no ladder climbing for three months—when a stranger came to visit me.
I mean, I’d been surrounded by strangers that whole week—nurses in bubble-gum-pink scrubs coming and going, checking stitches, vitals, surgical tape. Those pink scrubs really gave the whole staff a very uniform vibe.
But this stranger wasn’t in scrubs, she was in street clothes. She came right in and pulled up a chair, and I remember wondering if she was maybe a social worker or even a reporter doing some kind of piece on cavernomas.
Maybe she’d ask me to star in a documentary. I wondered what people got paid for that.
But that’s when she started talking.
And as the words accumulated, I started wondering if she really was a stranger after all.
“I came the first day,” she said, “but you were so out of it. And then Witt’s grandma got sick, so we had to drive to San Antonio to check on her. But don’t worry, I boarded Peanut at that vet clinic around the corner from your place. Which is probably better, anyway, because Witt’s pretty allergic, and he was being a great sport about it, but his eyes were, like, watering and itching the whole time. And that new clinic is awesome—though I know you like your old place. They’ve been sending me photos from the pup cam, and I think Peanut might have struck up a May-December romance with a Pomeranian.”
She paused for a laugh, but I just said, “What?”
I mean, why was this person talking about Peanut? Or Witt, for that matter?
The stranger leaned in a little. “What about what?”
“What about all of it?”
We blinked at each other.
And that’s when something impossible occurred to me.
This total stranger … was talking like she was my best friend, Sue.
I cannot describe the intense cognitive dissonance of suddenly knowing those two opposite things at once. But there was no other explanation. I was clearly sitting across from a person I did not know … and she was clearly saying things that only Sue could say.
It’s fair to say that got my full attention.
Up until that point, all the other people who had moved through my room had been background noise. I’d taken them all for granted as I focused on postsurgical adventures like taking my meds, healing my incision, and shuffling back and forth to the bathroom.
I guess everything at the hospital had been just … as expected.
But then in came this person talking like Sue. And forced me to notice that she didn’t look like Sue. Which forced me to try to figure out what she did look like.
And that’s when I realized that I had no idea.
I mean, this lady in front of me had facial features. I could see them if I tried—one at a time. Eyes. A nose. Eyebrows. A mouth. They were all there.
I just couldn’t snap them together into a face. Any face at all. Least of all Sue’s.
“Sue?” I asked.
“What?”
“Is it you?”
“It’s me,” she said, like it might be a trick question.
“What did you do to your face?”
I saw her lift her hand to it. After a second, she said, “New moisturizer?”
“No. I mean—”
“Do I look weird? I switched multivitamins.”
Did she look weird? I mean, the components of her face were like puzzle pieces spread out on a table. So yeah.
But I didn’t exactly know how to say that.
I was just staring at her pieces, trying to Jedi-mind-trick them into clicking into their proper spots, when one of those nurses in the pink scrubs walked in.
And I realized that I couldn’t see her face, either.
I mean, “couldn’t see her face” is not exactly right. I could tell there was a face there. In theory. It wasn’t just a blank slate. I could zoom in on eyebrows and laugh lines and lips.
It was just that the pieces didn’t fit together right. They didn’t make a face. It was a bit like looking at a Picasso painting.
I could see it, I guess. I just couldn’t understand it.
It reminded me of that game you play as kids where you lie upside down and watch someone talking where their lips are flipped, top to bottom. Everything suddenly looked so funny. And disjointed. And cartoonish.
I felt a rising comprehension. Had I been like this all week?
As crazy as this sounds, it’s true: It was only once I really started trying to look that I realized I couldn’t see.
“Sue?” I said again, blinking, like maybe I could clear things up that way.
“You look fantastic,” she said, leaning forward and clasping my hands in hers. “You’d never know they just popped a section of your skull out like the top of a jack-o’-lantern.”
Yep. That was Sue, all right.
“I expected you to be bald, to be honest,” she went on. “I was prepared to walk in here and say you looked better bald. I had a whole Sinéad O’Connor–themed speech prepared.”
I rubbed my eyes and tried to look at her again.
But no change.