Page 36 of Dr. Brandt
As I selfishly ruminated on these horrific thoughts, anger firing them off one-by-one in my head, I heard Jackson laugh.
I felt like I was in a daze, but my thoughts were pulled out of this hole of selfish hopelessness when I saw Lisa throwing her head back in laughter.
“Dr. Brandt said that it took about six months after her surgery for her to be able to speak again,” Dr. Palmer said, bringing my attention to where she stood smiling at my son and Lisa laughing at the swans in the pond, swimming in circles.
“That was me after my surgery,” Lisa said with another laugh. “I was walking in circles instead of swimming in circles, though.”
“Was it frustrating?” Jackson asked. “I read that I might lose function of my right leg, possibly the entire right side of my body, with a hemispherectomy.”
“Which side is Dr. Brandt going to operate on?”
“The left,” Jackson answered.
“It’s possible. Only Dr. Brandt can answer that question for you,” she answered him.
“True. Was it hard, though? To go through with it or to go through rehabilitation?”
I folded my arms together as Dr. Palmer and I sat on a nearby bench, listening to the two talk.
The thought of Jackson having this surgery, going through painstaking recovery, and having potentially severe side effects terrified me to my core. I was a mother. Biology demanded that I do everything in my power to keep my child from harm. It would go against nature for me to feel anything other than fear in this situation, but I reminded myself that this wasn’t about me. This was about Jackson, and he didn’t seem scared. If anything, he seemed intrigued.
“Lisa’s mother was a lot like you,” Dr. Palmer said. “At least that’s how the story goes. I’ve only been here for a year, and Lisa’s surgery was performed four years ago.”
“Four years ago?” I said. Knowing that Lisa still had some paralysis after that length of time made me wonder if Jackson would ever be able to play sports again. I’d been holding to hope that surgery was the solution to that problem. I didn’t think that it might take away the possibility entirely.
“Yes, and she’s come a very long way. But Dr. Brandt has always said that timing and age are critical in performing these surgeries. He operated on Lisa when she was fourteen years old, and still, even though she was young, it took a lot of work in rehab to get her where she is today.”
“And that is?”
That may have come off bitchy. I didn’t know, and I didn’t mean to, but it was hard to put a lid on my concerns.
“She brags that Dr. Brandt challenged her in ways that most doctors wouldn’t. She is quite a competitive child. Cameron thinks she must’ve talked her mother into allowing her to have the surgery just to prove to the doctors that anyone could recover at her age—older or not. I think Cameron’s first challenge was telling Lisa the only wheels she’d have were her wheelchair wheels.”
“That’s a bit callous, don’t you think?”
“You haven’t seen Dr. Brandt with his patients, or you’d understand.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“He’s known for finding his patients’ weakness or challenge points,” she said, ignoring my blunt remarks. “So, with Lisa, he knew that if you told her she wouldn’t have something, she’d prove you wrong. Cameron told me that it nearly crushed him when he challenged her because even as a fantastic surgeon, he wasn’t sure if she would be able to walk again. It was a real possibility that she’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. But when her parents told him that reverse psychology worked like a charm on their daughter, Cameron went to work.
“He didn’t want to upset Lisa, but he needed to challenge her greatly to train her right hemisphere to work harder. She needed it to pick up where the left hemisphere once did the work. She remained diligent, focused, and most of all, driven with willpower that blew Dr. Brandt’s mind. It didn’t take long before she regained the function of parts of the right side of her body. She found her little laugh and smile again too.”
I smiled, hearing Lisa and Jackson in a happy conversation. Jackson didn’t shy away from the hard questions.
“It’s okay to be fearful for your son, you know?”
“I understand, but it’s not fair to him for me to be upset by this drastic change in his life. I don’t want him to have the surgery, but because my son is sixteen, and this isn’t my life, I don’t know how to feel about making the decision. Am I willing to risk constant, crippling seizures over the potential side effects of this surgery?”
“It’s wonderful that you consider his feelings; however, in the end, he’s a minor, and you’re the one signing the papers. So, if you’re not one hundred percent convinced that your son should go through with this surgery and you back out at the last minute, whether he wants it done or not, that will be a heavy thing for you both to deal with.”
“What are you saying?”
“I saw the look on your face when you noticed Lisa’s limp,” she said, practically reading my mind and having the answers lined up for my questions. “The sight of it rightfully shook you. I’ve been with parents who were very confident and comfortable with their children having surgeries—different ones than a hemispherectomy, of course—and even they have backed out at the last minute, some of them leaving mine or Dr. Brandt’s care altogether. Unfortunately, fear has a way of taking over emotions, and sometimes poor decisions are made. This is why Dr. Brandt wanted you both to meet with Lisa. Lisa’s mom called off the surgery the night before it was scheduled, but with the help of our neuropsychologists and Dr. Brandt’s relaxed demeanor, they convinced her to go through with it.”
“What would have happened if they didn’t do the surgery? What form of epilepsy did she have that called for a hemispherectomy?”
“She had Rasmussen’s encephalitis, a degenerative disease. It damages tissues, eating away at one side of the brain but never making it to the other. If it had been left untreated, she would have suffered paralysis on one full side of the body and had uncontrollable seizures. It took about a year before Dr. Brandt was able to fully gain Lisa and her family’s trust to move ahead with the surgery. The younger they are, the better it is to operate on them since the brain is still developing and the left and right hemispheres are still growing.”
