The Potty Mouth at the Table (23 page)

And it was not a jelly bean. It was a glioblastoma, the kind that would kill Ted Kennedy the following year. I had never heard that word before. It’s a mean sort of brain cancer, it swells and it grows and it sends out tentacles with hooks on the ends to establish cancer cells in every part of the brain, like a spiderweb. Like a mean spiderweb. And my ninety-year-old
grandmother had it. She also had a choice: let it be, or undergo brain surgery and then chemo and radiation.

“No,” she said quietly as the neuro-oncologist held the MRI film of her brain with a large white ball sitting right above her ear. “I don’t want any of that.”

So I am shocked when Kartz asks the nurse to bring up the MRI on the computer screen that is next to the hospital bed. There’s no film anymore, it’s all digital on a screen. And on that screen is a big white ball above Kartz’s ear, the size of a golf ball.

But it’s still too early to tell. There is still hope. It is not a jelly bean, but it may not be a spiderweb. It could still just be a nameless big white ball.

K
artz is scheduled for surgery the next day after her sister and family arrive. I am dumbstruck when I walk into the room and meet them for the first time. Nana is sitting next to the bed—or at least, she looks just like I remember my nana when I was a kid. I don’t even realize it’s not Nana for a moment until I understand that it’s not possible, and then I am introduced to Kartz’s sister, Maria. I want to hug her, and I do.

K
artz shows no sign of hesitancy when Maria and I see her in pre-op and she has the right side of her head shaved. It’s been a week exactly since we had dinner.

“I am not worried,” she assures the both of us, and laughs. “It’s going to be fine. I know that. I just needed a haircut.”

Then she lies back, looks at the ceiling, and is quiet.

T
he surgery doesn’t take long; it takes much less time than any of us thought. We’re not sure if that’s good or bad, but we expected it to last into the evening. My husband and I had gone home to let Maeby out and had just backed out of the driveway to head back to the hospital when Maria called.

“The surgery is over,” she says. “The doctor said he got it all. It’s all out! She’s not awake yet, but she’s in recovery in ICU, which is normal.”

I agree that it’s marvelous news.

“The surgeon said by looking at it he can tell what kind of tumor it is, but they still need to do tests on it to make sure,” Maria continues, repeating what her husband, Frank, is saying in the background. “He said it’s a glio— What is it, Frank? It’s called a glioblastoma.”

W
e walk into the OR waiting room, which is vast, modern, and tries to look comfortable. I remember fireplaces everywhere. We see Maria’s family sitting in a circle of puffy, stuffed, neutral-colored chairs. They look stunned. They have been crying. We have all been crying.

“I’m sorry,” I say as I take Maria’s hand, incapable of saying anything else. “I’m sorry.”

W
hen the bandage—which is just a square of gauze and tape—comes off, the suture is substantial. Shaped like a backward question mark, the incision winds from Kartz’s temple to behind her ear in a wide, sweeping curve. The skin is puckered and fastened by staples, about fourteen of them, holding Kartz’s scalp together. It is difficult to see at first, but it’s startling what you can get used to in a matter of hours.

A chaplain comes into the room and sits on the banquette off to the side. Kartz thinks he might be the doctor, because we have still not seen the oncologist, presumably because the test results are not back yet. So she listens to him when he begins talking about the end of life, and what that means, and how different people feel different ways.

I try to catch his eyes to signal for him to stop it.
She doesn’t know this, none of us really do, so you need to stop it with the “what does life mean?” talk,
but he never looks at me. He pats her on the leg, and despite all of what he has just said, this was the signal she needed to inform him, maybe a little briskly, that she may have had a brain tumor, yes. That part is right. But she has no intention of going anywhere, and Maria will tell you that, and Kartz points to her sister, and that woman over there—and Kartz points to me—will tell you that, too.

I just smile. And I nod.

T
he next morning, when I get to the hospital, a covered dish arrives on Kartz’s bed tray and she is very excited.

“Look, look,” she says cheerfully. “They let me order my own breakfast last night from a list.”

“Ooooo,” I say, putting my purse down. “What did you get?”

“I don’t remember!” She giggles, then lifts up the silver cover of the tray to expose her carefully chosen meal of oatmeal and salsa.

We both recoil in horror, and then burst out laughing.

“I hope that part of your brain grows back fast,” I say. “Or I’m going to get sick of sharing my food with you.”

W
hen the oncologist finally comes in, four days after surgery, the room is packed. Many of Kartz’s friends are there, so many that there is only standing room. He is young, doubtfully young, and he walks in, introduces himself, and flips open Kartz’s chart. He repeats everything we already know,
you had a tumor, size of a golf ball, on the right side
(we all nod and look at the massive backward question mark stapled into the shaved half of Kartz’s head), and it’s a stage-four glioblastoma.

Quick as that. He says it as quick as that.

“
Yes!
” Kartz says, and claps her hands with several tiny beats, and develops a wide, beaming smile. “That’s great!”

The doctor looks stunned.

“No,” he says, looking around the room. “No, I’m sorry. Stage four is the most progressive. It’s not good. It’s a terminal; this type of cancer is terminal.”

She is stopped. Her clear blue eyes look at me. They look at everybody. The room is quiet, but Kartz won’t let it be quiet and she points a finger at this young, clean doctor in his white coat, with that folder open, and with the precision in which he spoke, she says with assurance, “I am not going to die.” This girl with half a marked and sutured head, my friend who is missing most of her hair, my friend who
doesn’t remember that she was once married, says carefully, and with balance, “I am going to live forever.”

We all believe her.