Brainstorm

by Robert Wintner

  I wish my needs were that simple and perhaps act out that simplicity in my thoughts. I knew Rachel shared my natural attraction to the sibilant depths but never so much as the day before the milestone mammogram, six months after her breast-cancer diagnosis. By then all her friends and acquaintances and doctors wished her well with sad resignation and common recognition that the end was near. She had declined “the great cures” in lieu of “the easy way out.” So thorough was consensus that she asked if it made sense to me, dropping thirteen percent of her body weight, drinking vinegar and stinky juice, popping enough vitamins to give Babar a kidney stone. “Am I crazy?”

  “Of course you are,” I assured her every time. “What does that have to do with anything?” The six-month mammogram was scheduled for a Monday and loomed no less gray and sinister than a swim off the beach under gathering clouds at dusk, as if a carnivorous phantom lurked there. Shark imagery most often conjures fear unfairly. We’d met many sharks in our marine lives and knew that sharks are no big deal beyond the mutual sniff, assessment and exchange of curiosities. But we were afraid, in need of a diversion, so we decided on a reef outing for Sunday, the day before the telltale test.

  Two reefs on Maui enjoy adequate protection from the human onslaught, classified as Marine Life Conservation Districts—no anchors, no boats or boating traffic and no fishing, including hooks, nets or spears. Ahihi Bay is on the south end and Honolua Bay is up north. We chose Honolua, even though the north swell is often up through late spring, and on Sunday the place would likely be packed with people. We hadn’t been there through the winter and wanted something fresh, never mind the swell off the ocean or the crowds; we’d go way out, beyond the masses and shore break.

  But the parking lot up by the road was empty, and we hiked down to an empty cove. The bay was flat as water in a bowl, and though we noted these strange conditions, we didn’t call them eerie—we didn’t remark on them or say anything. We were out for recreation, not assessments of strangeness. We wanted away from strangeness. We welcomed the same silence above the surface that we would find below.

  In the water in a minute, we cruised easily out a hundred yards or so. With no wind, no surge and no humans, visibility below seemed as clear as above. In a short distance we were joined by six or eight raccoon butterflyfish, perfect little beauties whose masks rippled back from their eyes into a radiant yellow. Then came forty or fifty yellow tangs in radiant yellow with no ripples. A few dozen Moorish idols and parrotfish came in with many wrasses, reef triggerfish, fantail filefish and three-foot trumpets in both silver and yellow. The puffers came in pairs, spotted, blue and gold and boxfish hovering among the Hawaiian lionfish (very rare in open water), angelfish, damsels, black durgons, pinktail durgons rarely seen so shallow, a spotted eagle ray, a few ulua, some unicorns and a school of goatfish.

  You get the picture: dozens and then hundreds and soon thousands of fish in waves of color, innocence, curiosity and something else, converging slowly from all points to hover in a circle of light and shimmering, spectral color. Fish don’t wear smiley faces but use their lateral lines to emit neurons, in this case neurons of well-being and assurance, at that moment neurons in unison and with ample amperage to convey their message. They hovered and watched the center of their gathering, which was us.

  Rachel came up crying her eyes out. I trembled in the presence of God, telling us we were covered by whatever magic ever existed in heaven and earth, and don’t forget the deep blue sea; it would be all right. We hugged in a brief, easy tread and had no more doubt through the following day. The all clear came by dusk on Monday like another shark, perhaps, an animal spirit passing through. Meanwhile, on that Sunday morning, we dove back down to celebrate with our friends. It was the crowning contact of our life under water.

  So I dive again, seeking the little fish in the depths of my straining dream on the ninth floor in downtown Seattle. I want that feeling again, but it won’t come at will or by desire or for personal need. I reckon sleep at about four-thirty, when images merge and patterns of fact and number swirl asymmetrically, lose their color and go deep. Light fades. A hospital monitor would show rapid eye movement as a great frayed net sweeps the reef to capture the magic for removal to aquarium display far, far away, so that the people may be educated and the children amused—No! No! No! You can’t do that!

  Oh, but it must be done, cries the needful voice. I watch in horror. The net is a fine mesh made of thin, invisible nylon and catches every speck of life and color and light—even the plankton cling to it, for such is the power of the dark spirit moving over all of all, having its way, a juggernaut of disastrous need. I cry out but have no voice until fatigue turns my silent cry to a whimper and a twitch, and desire takes a rest.

  A long time later, from the abyss of what feels like the waters of forgetfulness, a little talk-bubble rises. I can see the words inside all jumbled up. We rise, gaining momentum, nearing the surface and then breaking it, bolting up and bursting out: Wait a minute! If odds are running five percent annually, you’re still looking at five percent each year whether you go twenty years or a million! Waiiiit!

  6

  You’re Doing So Many Things to Upset Us

  The haze solidifies when the phone rings. “Mmnnguh.”

  “Is this Rachel’s husband?”

  “Nyuh.”

  “You need to get down here right away.”

  I bolt again like a bit player in Night of the Living Dead. Didn’t I do that just a second ago? Have I slept at all? “Wha? Wha’s it? Wha’s wrong?”

  “Your wife is leaving.”

  “Leaving?”

  “She’s disconnecting herself. She says she’s leaving.”

  “Ohhh . . . Put her on.”

  “Okay.”

  Oh, God.

  “Hello, dear.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m leaving. Can you pick me up? I need my clothes. They stole my clothes and my horse and everything. These people are so rude.”

  “Rude?”

  “Yes. The nurse last night was horrible. What a mean man. I finally told him I didn’t even like him. You know what he said? He said, ‘That’s okay. I don’t like you either.’ I’ve had it. Then the Indian bitch comes in this morning and starts yelling at me. I don’t need that.”

  “Yelling at you? About what?”

  “About all my questions. They won’t even answer my questions. She yelled at me because I asked the same things last night. She says, ‘I already told you about that and I’m not wasting any more time on you.’ What a cunt.”

  Rachel uses the C-word as often as she takes aspirin. I think these women have failed in patience and respect. I’m partial to Rachel, because the doctor should be more flexible to the needs of patients in the throes of subarachnoid pressure. Yes, Rachel can be demanding, like now. So what?

  More importantly, I sense new hazard, new symptoms of delusion. We may have a theft, a mean nurse and a spiteful doctor, but her complaint goes murky when she accuses the staff of switching pictures on her.

  “Those aren’t my pictures! They won’t even slide me my pictures! I don’t think they even have them!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What pictures do you mean?”

  “My x-ray pictures. They won’t sl . . . sl . . .

  “They won’t show you?”

  “Yeah. They won’t show me. They showed me somebody else. It didn’t even have my name on the thing.”

  Oy. We know that calamity and death in hospitals can and does result from clerical error. Yet I fear the other phantom here. She is demanding film negatives from the morning angiogram, and they have not come forth. They gave her Valium, she says, and then refused to share the results.

  “How do you know it was Valium?”

  “I don’t know. But they gave me something so I couldn’t even . . . you know.” She knows as well that the brain appearing on the monitor wasn’t hers.

  “How do you know it
wasn’t yours?”

  “It didn’t even have my name on it.”

  “Oh.” I don’t press here. I don’t ask if she thinks it was stock footage on the monitor, or if they maybe had a shill plugged in one room over, a certain goner they keep on hand to close tough deals like this one.

  I feel the odds growing against her logic; did she expect to see her name stamped on her brain? Or was another name printed at the bottom of the screen? “How do you know they gave you a drug?”

  “I felt it. It wasn’t like the dots or the other. They put it in my veins. They said the angiogram would be real painful, you know, right in here.”

  “I can’t see you, dear.”

  “Right here, up to my ribs, and then it wouldn’t hurt. But I got real fuzzled and didn’t know what was going on. I know it’s not right.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  “I’m leaving.”

  We are known by now as the troublesome two who won’t go along. As the trauma center for five states, this hospital deals in tremendous volume with equal pressure that keeps staff fuses as short as our own. We ask questions and have yet to display gratitude. I will overhear and be told through the morning that surgery should have been last night, and now the whole staff is upset because we declined. Now Rachel could die and I mean right now, and it’s our fault. Except that first, before dropping dead, Rachel is leaving.

  “Look. Please! Do me a favor. Stay put till I get there. I need to run the dogs out for a whiz. I have to whiz and brush my teeth. Wait. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Please relax until I get there.”

  “I have to! They took my drawdles! Hurry up. And bring me some lipstick!”

  Off her fricking rocker. I bolt again and crunch gears, my own brain smoking at dangerously high rpm. Yet I’m gratified by small efficiency. I serendipitously save two minutes by pissing along with the dogs instead of treating it as separate functions of species. With a half-minute shower to wake me, I’m out the door nine minutes after the call.

  But I’m right back in. It’s nearly ten a.m. in Florida. I call The Upledger Institute. Dazed and stressed, I explain my urgent need for guidance. The woman at the other end doesn’t know where Dr. Upledger is right now, but he’s in the country; in fact he’s in town and should be found in the next hour. Dr. Upledger? The Pope, himself? “Perfect.” I give her my cell number and the number in the room, where I’ll be in a few minutes. Which I am in seven minutes, after clearing customs.

  Anonymous staff follows me into the room to ask for a finger squeeze, the date and the name of the President of the United States of America. They probe at will. One of them says, “Don’t stand there, please.” I step aside. They make notes and leave with no further discussion.

  At least things are calmer now. A man in a white tunic with less hair than me attends Rachel. He says hello. His name is Lawrence. His handshake and demeanor seem reasonable and stable, and he has not scratched out his nametag in favor of a hand-hewn Larry. Beneath his name is Head Surgeon.

  Lawrence has not seen the sun in recent months, nor does he appear physically fit, but he’s physically intact and conveys a fortitude, stability and social skill hitherto lacking in hospital personnel. I ask why Rachel was so upset this morning with the Doctor who appears to be from India.

  “That would be Dr. Visnawara.”

  “Yes. Rachel feels this woman is of the Cuntish sect, and I have to tell you we don’t mind Sikhs or Kurds, but we cannot allow any Cunts.”

  He won’t smile but says, “We’re all under pressure here. We want to resolve this soon. I’m here to answer questions.”

  The phone rings. I know who it is. Rachel asks about the slice he wants to make in her melon. “Hello?”

  “Hello. This is John Upledger . . .”

  John Upledger is the most highly regarded purveyor of non-western remedy for cranial-sacral injury in the world. His name is generic. Having him on the line is like speaking to, say, John Kleenex or John Xerox or John Pepsi or John General Motors. It’s all relative to personal values, of course. But I ask him to hold, please, so maybe he can talk directly with the surgeon. We can save time that way, dispensing with me, the messenger. Dr. Upledger says all right, and I announce with a degree of exoneration, “I have John Upledger on the line.”

  “Listen,” Lawrence the neurosurgeon says. “I only have a minute here. If you could take that call later it might be best. Okay, we make the incision here, behind your ear and run it up in a horseshoe shape up to here, where you part your hair. About nine inches . . .”

  “Yes. Sorry, Doctor Upledger. I thought the neurosurgeon might want to, you know. But . . .”

  “I know.”

  “It’s an aneurysm that bled but it didn’t blow out. The infusion CAT scan showed the bleeding is contained for now, but the clot is big; they’re saying four centimeters. Oh, and no tumor. I don’t know what to do. We don’t belong here. They’re coming at us like a tidal wave. We have a history of breast cancer with a complete cure with no surgery, no radiation and no chemotherapy. Nobody here will tell us if we might—”

  “Listen,” Upledger interrupts. He waits for a settling moment. “I know what you’re going through and what you’re hoping for. I know what they’re putting you through. I know they’re urgent and insistent and keep you ignorant. I know they’re refusing to talk to you or explain the basics. But I have to tell you, sometimes we have to depend on these fellows for a few things we have no alternative for, not yet, and this is one of those times. You simply have no choice here. You must proceed.” He is done. He waits for comprehension.

  “I understand. It’s that simple. It’s cut and dried. Thank you. At least hearing it from someone from our school makes the decision easier for me.”

  “This may be a small consolation for now, but I can tell you, this is a straightforward procedure for these guys. You have no choice. There is nothing else we can do for a subarachnoid bleed. Nothing. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand. I appreciate your help.”

  “Good luck to you and your wife.”

  “Thanks.” I’m off the phone and back in the world of intense caring.

  “No,” says Lawrence the neurosurgeon. “I’ll stop short of your hairline. You won’t see it. I mean, you’ll see it for a few months, but not after the hair grows back. We don’t remove your scalp. We fold it back. We cut a section from your skull. We lift the lobe of your brain and remove the clot. Time is critical. You’re already at forty hours or so. At seventy-two hours the clot breaks down. Many vessels in your brain will constrict. You’ll spasm and stroke. Once we clear the clot, we clip the aneurysm.”

  “Clip it?”

  “With a small titanium clip. It stays in forever.”

  “Then you skull my hat back?”

  “Yes. We secure that section with two titanium plates. Small ones that won’t set off security alarms.”

  She lays back and sighs, “That’s crazy.”

  He nods and moves to the counter at the end of the room to make notes in Rachel’s folder. “That was John Upledger on the phone,” I tell her.

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s the pope of alternative cranial-sacral remedy. He says we have no choice. We must have the surgery.” She sighs again. “I’m not going against you,” I say. “I’m only telling you my own, personal position. My standard is what I would choose for myself. I think surgery is not a clean choice. We may see complications. But avoiding the surgery is a dirtier choice. We can’t do that.”

  “I can do that.”

  “There is no alternative source. John Upledger says we’re dealing with internal pressure. There is no other remedy attempted anywhere.” Her lips tighten. She smiles to hold back the tears. “If I was you, I would hate having surgery, because I want to have a spiritual death at home, not in this insane asylum. But I think we have a chance at success and many more years of life and fun. I can’t give up that chance, not for a spiritual death right now. I can’t.”
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  I move to the counter and tell Lawrence lowly, “We want to schedule this.”

  “You’re making the right choice. Believe me.” He is walking out before this sentence is finished. I walk alongside, willing to accompany him all the way to his house if necessary to complete this session.

  “You understand, I hope, that we come from a completely different belief system. I want to help facilitate the surgery, but I can’t do it alone. Please don’t assign the Indian woman to us. And if you wouldn’t mind, any disclosures on death and morbidity can be made to me. Not to Rachel. All right?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Oh, and she’s really upset about having her head shaved. Can’t you lie? Tell her it’s only a two-inch incision?”

  He stops and stares at me in gentle disbelief, as if I’m nuts, as if this could be the set-up he’s anticipated all along. “We don’t mean to get anyone upset.”

  “I know that. But her stress levels are extremely high.”

  “They’ll get higher. But that’s better than dying.”

  “She’s not afraid of dying. Do you understand that?” He tries but apparently can’t understand our view anymore than we can freely accept his good intention, mixed as it is with superiority and certainty. So I state our position precisely: “It’s less than living that she fears.” And I cringe at the words that come next. “Death is preferable to morbidity. We’ve been resistant till now, because only Dr. Upledger explained the certainty to us.”

  “You mean the fellow on the phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “He must have explained it to you in terms that were acceptable to you.”

  “Well, yes. He did.”

  With a sanguine smile indicating familiarity with our perspective all along, Lawrence begins walking away. He turns his head back to talk over his shoulder. “We’ll have another angiogram this morning with radioactive dye. It’s the gold standard.” He finds his stride.