Chapter 4
The phones ringing filled the room as they all prepared to tell the next person. The sound of someone picking up on the other end startled Ali.
“Hey Ali!” Came the voice of another defender.
“Hey Kell. How are you doing? Oh, and by the way, you’re on speaker and Ash and Kyle are with me.”
Kelley had been the first one that Ali and Ashlyn had thought of to call. They knew that she was going to be very caring and helpful with this whole situation, and wouldn’t freak out too much, at least that’s what they were hoping. Kelley had been by Ali’s side ever since their start with the national team, and they had been great friends ever since.
“Better than ever. How about the amazing couple, oh, and Kyle.”
“We’re good. But we’ve uh, got some news for you.”
“What is it? Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
Everyone laughed at Kelley’s excitement, but once they realized how let down she would be, the room fell silent.
“Well?”
“Oh, uh, sorry. So the last two days have been pretty eventful for Ash and I. I don’t really know how to say this, but um, I have a brain tumor.”
“What? Oh my god. How did you find out? Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay. There’s isn’t anything to worry about yet. I promise. I, uh fainted last night and I didn’t wake up for a while, so I got, um, rushed to the hospital and they took a CT, which is where they saw the tumor.”
“Is it bad?”
“We don’t know that much about it yet other than it’s there. I just had an MRI so they could get a closer look.”
“Do you want me to come down?”
“I would love it if you could, but my parents will be down here soon and I already have Ash and Kyle here so if you can’t I completely understand.”
“Well you’re in luck. I don’t have to go back to New Jersey for a week or two so I will be down there with you as soon as possible.”
“Thanks Kell. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Just as they were about to hang up, Ali remembered one more request she had for her fellow defender.
“Oh, and Kell.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Can you, kind of keep this to yourself for now? I want to tell everyone myself.”
“Of course. I’ll see you soon.”
The phone line went dead and Ali let out a sigh of relief.
“That went well.” Ashlyn told Ali.
“Yeah, but I have a feeling there are some other conversations that may not turn out that well.”
“No kidding. We’ve got some dramatic teammates.” Ashlyn said, attempting to lighten the mood.
“Thankfully, Kelley is not one of those.”
///
“Okay, we’ve got the results.” Dr. Fletcher said as he closed the door. “I would recommend everyone sits down because this is going to be a lot of information to take in. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them. That’s what I’m here for.”
Everyone in the room was taking deep breaths preparing themselves for the news. Ashlyn and Kyle were sitting on each side of Ali holding her hand. The only question any of them had at this moment was who was going to break down first.
“So this is the MRI and the CT scan. As you can tell, the MRI gives up a little bit more detail about the tumor, especially with the contrast we used. A few other doctors and I looked at the scans and we were able to come to a conclusion that you have a meningioma –”
“And what does that mean?” Ashlyn jumped in.
“That’s what I was getting to.” Ashlyn blushed. Her nervousness was showing through. Ali glanced over at her, holding in a giggle knowing how embarrassed Ashlyn was. “A meningioma is typically a very slow growing tumor, or a benign tumor.”
“What does benign mean?” Ali asked. Ashlyn looked over at Ali and could tell how intently she was listening to Dr. Fletcher’s every word. She wanted to know specifically what was wrong in as much detail as humanly possible. Ashlyn could see the fight in her girlfriend’s eyes.
“Benign is non-cancerous. So that would mean you just have a mass of cells in your brain, that won’t grow or cause any more harm than they already have.”
The defender’s eyes lit up. Hearing that the tumor could possibly not be cancer was a relief and I’m sure it would be for everyone else too. She gripped Kyle and Ash’s hand a little tighter.
“So based on that information, you have a few options for treatment. The first one, that is going to be the best option is surgery.” Ash now had Ali’s hand in a death grip.
“Ash, you have the hand grip of a lion’s jaw. You don’t need to squeeze my hand that hard. I already have a headache; you don’t need to break my hand too.”
“Oh, uh, sorry.” Ali just laughed.
“As, I was saying, surgery is the best option, but there is also radiation and chemotherapy too.”
“Could you explain more of what each of these would involve?”
“Of course. With the surgery, we would be doing a biopsy where we would be able to get most of the tumor out and we would also be able to figure out whether the tumor is cancerous or not. With the surgery, if we aren’t able to get the whole tumor out, you would still have to get radiation or chemo to kill the rest of the what’s left. If you decide to opt out of surgery, there would be chemo, radiation, or both and it would be much more intense.”
“Okay, so surgery is what you recommend?”
“For sure. I would choose surgery in a heartbeat, but there are some people who choose not to.”
“What are the risks of the surgery?” Kyle asked.
“Obviously there are the typical ones that come with any surgery, but with this being brain surgery and the placement of the tumor, there can be a few more than normal. As your tumor is on the outer edge of your brain, it makes it easier to access, but with the tumor being in the frontal lobe, there is possibility that it could affect your behavior or movements.”
“What exactly do you mean by it could affect my behavior or movement?” Ali was not looking forward to the answer to this question.
“The frontal lobe has many different functions, movement and behavior being two of them. This surgery could possibly damage parts of the brain and make your behavior be, say more aggressive, or make you have relearn how to do some types of movements. I am going to leave you with this and let you guys think about this for a while. You can let me know your choice when you’re ready.”
“Okay. Thank you.” And with that, the three of them were left sitting in the hospital room, silent.
Kyle eyed Ali nervously. It was quite noticeable that he wasn’t exactly sold on the idea of brain surgery. In his head the risks greatly outweighed the positives, but Ali was not about to let him persuade her away from the surgery.
“Kyle. I know you love me and I know you don’t want me to get hurt, but do you really want to see me suffer through chemo?” Kyle stopped and thought about it for a second, but Ali jumped in again to stop him. “This surgery is going to make the process go faster. I wouldn’t choose to go through any of this if I could, but I don’t have that choice so I am going to make the best with what I have. For me, that is surgery.” Ali was getting emotional. Ashlyn could sense she was very passionate about this choice.
“Ali. I am going to stand by you with whatever choice you make. Whether that is surgery or not, it is your decision. This is your body, your brain, but I want you to know for a fact that you are making the right decision.”
Ali looked up at her girlfriend feeling very relieved. She was glad that at least one of the two people she loved most was on her side right now.
“But Al –” Kyle tried to start.
“Kyle. No. This is my choice. This is what I am going to do. If you don’t decide to support me in my choice, all I ask is that you are able to still stay by my side as I go through this.”
“Of course Alex. I would never leave your side, especially now. But what if the surgery goes wrong, what if they damage something that stops you from playing soccer, what if –”
“Kyle I said stop. You’re not going to change my mind.”
///
Ali perked up as she heard a light knock on the door. Ashlyn watched her eyes light up as her parents walked into the room.
“Oh Alex. I’m so sorry.” Her mom ran towards her opening her arms for a hug.
“It’s nice to see you.”
“How are you doing? Is it bad? I want all the details.”
“Let’s slow down. I just want to catch up a little first. I’ve done too much talking about me in the last two days.”
Ali really had been getting sick of all the worrying everyone else had been doing about her. She had been stuck in the bed for the last two days, barely taken more than 5 steps and it was really starting to take its effect. For someone who was usually so athletic, being stuck in one spot for two days was really hard. She desperately wanted to go on a run, but by the way Ashlyn, Kyle, and now her parents would be protecting her, she knew how small of a chance there was for that. She just wanted to hear about something other than her brain tumor.
“Fine. We’ve been good. So now you.”
The glare that Ali gave her parents was enough to tell them their response wasn’t good enough.
“We’ve visited your uncle in Tennessee and that was good. We’ve been spending a lot of time outside and going on walks. But please, I want to hear about you.” Her mom said pleading with Ali. It took a little bit of desperation, but Ali gave in.
“Only because you’re my parents, but I’m going to give you the brief version.” Her parents stared at Ali intently, happy with any information they were going to hear about how their princess was doing. “My doctor, Dr. Fletcher, said that I have a meningioma, which is usually a slow growing or non-cancerous tumor. He gave me a few options for treatment but I’ve already decided that I am going to get surgery.”
Her parents’ eyes bulged at the sound of surgery. They too seemed a little on the edge about it just as Kyle was.
“Ali, have you thought about this enough. Why make the decision so quickly? Brain surgery is a big deal.”
“Mom. Please trust me. This is my decision. I have gone through many surgeries before and I’ve had no issues. I trust the doctors. They know what they’re doing.”
“But Alex, the brain is such a sensitive thing. There are so many things that could go wrong.”
“You don’t think I know that? I want to do the surgery. End of story.”
The room was silent for a while. Nobody was willing to talk. Kyle and her parents had plead their case to Ali, but she wasn’t going to budge. Ali decided she had enough of sitting in her room.
“Well, I’m going to go find Dr. Fletcher and tell him my decision.”
Kyle looked as though he was going to fight back, but stopped himself in the act deciding it wasn’t worth it. Ali had her own mindset with this whole thing and whatever anybody else said wasn’t going to change anything.
“I’m coming with you. I don’t care what you say.” Ashlyn jumped up from her chair to help Ali out of the bed she had barely moved from in over 24 hours.
The two of them walked out the door, Ali seemingly on a mission to find Dr. Fletcher, but their mission stopped dead in their feet as Ashlyn ran straight into the doctor. Both of them stumbled backwards a few steps, a little stunned.
“What are you doing up and out of bed?” Dr. Fletcher asked once he regained his composure.
“She was insistent on finding you.” Ashlyn laughed.
“Well, how are you feeling?”
“Really good. I needed the exercise. These legs needed to get moving again.” Dr. Fletcher laughed knowing it was the athlete in Ali talking.
“Well, I was just heading into your room, so we can go back in there and we can arrange for you to get a little exercise later.”
Ali was slightly reluctant to move as she didn’t want to tell Dr. Fletcher in front of her parents, but she also didn’t want to seem like a child so she slowly walked back into the room behind Ashlyn and Dr. Fletcher.
“So have you made any decisions yet?”
“Uh, yeah. I want to do the surgery.” Ali looked around the room looking for reactions of support from her parents and brother, but she saw nothing. Just a questioning and angry face from the three of them.
A smile formed on Dr. Fletcher’s face as he was happy with her choice.
“Okay. We will get that scheduled as soon as possible.”