My Second Birthday (no, not born again)
At midnight on this day seven years ago, I had just finished a marathon snacking session with my boyfriend and my little brother. We were sitting on the back of my pickup truck, chugging Slurpees and eating Cheetos by the handful. We were giddy, cranked up on sugar and artificial preservatives. We weren’t high and we hadn’t been drinking. We were eating all the horrible junk foods I would never eat again if something went wrong the next morning. I never really talked about my own fear of the coming surgery. My parents were terrified, and my siblings and boyfriend were equally distraught. It was brain surgery, after all. Common procedure, the doctor kept saying. Nothing to be afraid of. But it was brain surgery. And if something went wrong the side-effects ranged from headaches to hydrocephalus—treated by the installation of a shunt, from loss of feeling to total paralysis. Or worse. My mother, boyfriend, and two sisters all accompanied me to the hospital. I wore my f...