Chapter 6
“No, Ali, you need to stay in the car. I am going to get you a wheelchair.” Kyle yelled at Ali as she tried to get out of the car.
The car ride seemed to last forever and wasn’t helping the headache that had overcome Ali at all. As the car lurched to a stop in the front of the hospital, it seemed Kyle was out the door before she could even move a centimeter. Within a minute, Kyle was running back out the door with Dr. Fletcher and a few other nurses following behind him. Ali was slowly helped into a wheelchair and brought to her room. The reactions on Ashlyn and Kelley’s faces when they saw her being wheeled into the room were looks of extreme worry.
“Alex, where have you been?” Ashlyn practically screamed at her.
Only a slight groan came from Ali as the loud noise made her head throb even more. After realizing that Ali was in a large amount of pain, Ashlyn ignored the unanswered question and rushed to her side. Kyle’s voice could be heard just outside the door, nervously talking to Dr. Fletcher.
“She and I were just talking and suddenly she leaned over and put her hands on her head. I could tell right away that she was in a great deal of pain. I didn’t care whether it was serious or not, I was going to rush her over her as fast as I could.”
Before Kyle could ramble any more, Dr. Fletcher jumped in, trying to calm him down a little.
“Kyle, you made the right choice. We will give her some pain meds to control the headache, but for the sake of Ali’s safety, we might want to look into moving the surgery to today, as soon as we can fit it in. I think it would be best if we were just to get as much of the tumor out as fast as possible.”
Ali’s eyes shot open and she slowly tried to sit up in her bed. “But –” Her words stopped quickly as she realized that she wasn’t going to be able to get more out until her pain was lowered.
Thankfully though, Kelley could sense what she wanted to say. “She has a lot of people that she wants to tell before she is going to be willing to go into surgery.” Ali’s grip tightened on Kelley’s hand in attempt to show her that’s what she wanted to say. “How long were you thinking before she was taken back?”
“I would say about 4 hours or so. All of the operating rooms are filled right now, so it could be later depending on how long those surgeries take.”
Kelley looked over at Ali with a questioning look. Four hours to tell more than 20 people about a brain tumor that she was about to get surgery on. Ali nodded.
“Okay.” Ali just barely whispered.
The pain from the headache was still overwhelming her, but now Ali had to focus on controlling the nerves too. She thought she had another day to prepare herself, to take it all in, to tell herself that everything was going to be okay. Four hours filled with constantly telling people that are completely clueless about this whole situation was not exactly how she had imagined preparing herself for a surgeon to cut open her skull, and take out chunks of her brain.
///
“So, are we going to start with Pinoe?” Ashlyn asked.
“Yes. Now that we’ve waited three days to tell her, let’s just say that she probably won’t be very happy, even more once she finds out that she wasn’t first.”
Kelley glanced over at Ali with a guilty grin.
“Sorry that I’m your best friend.” Kelly said with a laugh.
“I don’t know if Pinoe would agree. At all.”
“Well if she doesn’t agree then she is sadly mistaken.”
“We’ll just have to see.”
The ring from the phone filled Ali’s ears and she started to panic a little.
“I don’t know if I want to tell them. I can’t do this.”
“Alex. It’s going to be okay. They want to know and you will feel better once you tell –”
“Ali! Hey girl! What’s up?” Pinoe’s voice came through the phone.
There was no voice in the room for a few seconds. Nobody knew what to say, or how to start.
“Hello? Is anybody there?”
“Yeah, sorry. I got uh, a little distracted. You’re on speaker phone right now with Ash and Kell.”
“Kelley! Ashlyn! What’s going on?”
“We’ve um, got some news.”
“Wait don’t tell me. Let me guess. Um… Oh I’ve got it! Ali’s prego!”
“No!” All three of them said in unison.
“Then what is it?”
“Megan, I, um, I’m getting surgery later today to take out a brain tumor.”
Silence.
“Wait, what?” Pinoe said after a few seconds.
“I was diagnosed with a brain tumor two days ago and I’m getting surgery to get it removed today.”
“Surgery? On your brain? Wait, why am I just learning of this now?”
“Megan, please. It’s been a busy few days. You are the second person to learn of this besides my family, so be glad you were this far on the top of the list.”
“So do you, uh, want me to come down there?”
“If you’re not busy.”
“Oh come on Ali. Do you really think that I would do anything over coming to see you?”
“No.” She said with a smile. “I just didn’t want to force you to come down here.”
“There’s no need to force me! I’ll be down as soon as possible! Love you Ali! Oh and Ash and Kell!”
“Megan, one more thing. Try your hardest not to tell anyone else. I would like to tell them personally.”
A nervous laugh came through the phone. “No promises, but I guess I’ll try.”
“Love you Megan. I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye!” Ash and Kell quickly said before Ali hung up.
Ali started laughing as soon as she pressed the end button. Both Kelley and Ashlyn stared at her and each other in deep confusion.
“What’s so funny?” Kelley asked once she couldn’t take it anymore.
Ali settled down a little and controlled her laughing. “I figured when I called Pinoe she would be all light and cheery like she usually is, but even this… even this seemed to scare her. I mean, she didn’t even say anything at first. How is everyone else going to react if even the happiest of us all gets scared and suddenly becomes quiet? I want to tell them, but I don’t want to scare them. Kyle is so scared that he broke his sobriety, how do I know that everyone else might do something similar.”
“Ali. Come on. You’re over reacting. Kyle is your brother, of course he’s going to react. He’s been there for you –”
“They’re all basically my sisters. How do you know that they aren’t going to react just the same way that Kyle did?”
The tears from Ali’s eyes were streaming down her face. She couldn’t hold in her worries anymore. They were all spilling out. Ashlyn was overwhelmed. She had thought that Ali was handling all of this so well. Yes, she knew she had freaked out when Kyle got drunk, but she had figured that it was just because she was so upset with Kyle. Ali had been so strong through breaking her leg, her blood clots, tearing her ACL, but Ashlyn had realized that this was the final breaking point. Ashlyn could feel her own tears starting to fall down her face.
“Ali, I know this scares you, but I also know that you can fight through this. You aren’t going to go through this alone. You are going to have so many people standing behind you, ready to hold you and be there for you whenever you need them too. Telling the girls is going to be the best option. Think of how they would react if they knew that you had undergone such a major surgery without their knowledge. Of course they are going to be scared, but isn’t everyone in situations like this. I am always there for you when you need help. Whether that’s telling the rest of the girls or just being there to hold your hand while you do it yourself, I’m there, no matter what.”
Ali sniffled a little, trying to control her breathing. She felt a little relief knowing that some of her fears had been put to rest, she still had many more fears to be spoken, but for now, it was time to tell her best friends.
“Thank you Ash. I would love it if both of you guys could call some of them. If anybody you call wants to talk to me that’s fine, but I would like some time to think things over before the surgery if I could. I can call Sydney, Abby, Broon, and Jill, but if you two could call the rest I would love you forever.”
“Are you saying you don’t already love us forever?” Kelley jumped in, trying to bring some humor in.
“Come on Kell. You know I love you.”
///
The same thing happened with Sydney, Abby, and Becky. They all were shocked, at least they had been when Pinoe spilled it to some of them and would all be down here as soon as possible. The waiting room was sure to be filled with worried people by the end of Ali’s surgery. Ashlyn and Kelley both had a few people who wanted to talk to Ali, but she decided she was going to wait until she had called her last person, Jill. Never did she think telling her coach would be so hard, but she had thought wrong. Once she had pressed the call button she wanted to end it, but she knew there was no going back.
“Hello, Ali.”
“Hey Jill. I’ve, uh, got some news.”
Ali fell silent waiting until she felt she was ready to let it all spill out. This situation was a little different. She is close with all of her teammates in a different way than she is with Jill. She had been the coach for almost two full years now so they all knew her pretty well, but the relationship was just different. She was her boss, and telling your boss that you have a tumor and will not only have to miss “work” for a while, but might even die, is a little hard.
“Hello?”
“Uh, sorry, got a little distracted. I have a brain tumor and I’m getting surgery on it in a few hours.”
“Wait, sorry, can you repeat that again? My service isn’t that great right now. All I heard was the word surgery so I need to hear this.”
Ali grumbled under her breath. Getting it out that one time was hard enough and now she had to say it again. Of course the one word that Jill had heard was surgery so that could tell her a number of things, but her first thought was most likely not that the surgery was for a brain tumor. She took a deep breath and spoke again.
“I have a brain tumor.” Ali spoke slowly and clearly making sure she wouldn’t have to say it again. “I’m getting surgery on it in a few hours.”
She heard Jill gasp. A million thoughts were running through Ali’s mind as to what Jill could be thinking. She herself didn’t even know what it meant for her future soccer career and she wasn’t prepared for any question that Jill had coming.
“Okay. So I’m guessing this means that you won’t be able to play for a while. Do you have any idea what the process for your treatment is going to be?”
“Yeah… I don’t really know much yet. The surgery will decide a lot of things as we will be able to know exactly what type of tumor it is and whether it is cancerous or not. Depending on how much of the tumor they get out, I might be doing chemo or radiation after the surgery.”
Jill was silent on the other end. It was quite noticeable that she was thinking, a lot.
“You better make sure to keep yourself as fit as possible.” Jill said with a laugh.
“Oh believe me. Being stuck in this hospital bed for the last few days has been terrible. I will be up and moving as soon as I possibly can. You can count on that.”
Ali was glad that Jill had gone to the light hearted side of this. There was no saying how she could have reacted whether angry, sad, or disappointed.
“Good. I guess I’ll just wish you the best of luck with your surgery today and hopefully I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.”
“Thanks. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
Ali hung up the phone and took a deep breath. She knew the next thing on her agenda for the day was surgery. The door cracked open a little and Kyle’s head popped through.
“Do you want to talk?”
“Yes. I would love that. I need somebody to calm me down before they slice open my brain.”
A slight shiver ran through Ali’s body as she said that. Maybe she was a little more scared than she had originally thought now that the surgery was so close and the real nerves were kicking in.
“So, do you want to talk about last night at all?”
“I don’t want to regret anything once I go into surgery let me just apologize. I overreacted. I should’ve been there to help you. I know you were at one of the lowest points that you’ve had in a long time and I need to be there for you, whether I was mad or not.”
“No. Ali. You had a right to react that way. I did something that I vowed never to do again. I should’ve said something and talked to someone before it got to that point. It’s my fault. I need to deal with the consequences for it.”
“Just because you messed up doesn’t mean I shouldn’t help you.”
“You are going through way more than I am right now. I need to be the one helping you, not the other way around.”
Ali wasn’t going to try to fight back. She knew that she was dealing with a lot right now and she needed all the support she could get.
“Just remember, that I will be there, ready to grant your every need as soon as you are out of surgery. I get to be your butler for the couple weeks as you recover because that’s what brothers are for.”
Ali smiled and felt a tear fall down her face. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have such an amazing brother that she loved so dearly.
“Thank you Kyle. I love you.”