The Gift of Loss: Part Ten

How a Brain Tumor became the best Gift I've ever received

Back at the Hospital

At twenty-three years old, this was not the life I dreamed about.

This was more like a bad case of deja vu. I was sitting at home when all of a sudden my body started behaving abnormally. We were counselled to come to the hospital the next morning, which we did. But it felt like I had done all of this before.

Every year since 2014, minus 2016, sometime around September, my health was in peril. I’ve heard that your brain has no sense of past or future, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet it all on saying that’s a lie.

I had a stroke in September of 2014, my imaging showed that the mass grew back in September of 2015, and here I was again in September of 2017, dealing with the same issue.

I sat with my mother in a side room and scarfed down some food. I don’t think I’d ever eaten that fast in my life. I don’t know if I was that hungry or if I worried this might be my last meal.

I kept looking up at the clock. No matter what I did, time just kept tick, tick, ticking away. My mom put on a brave face, but I knew she was worried. I mean, what parent wouldn’t be?

I’m not sure how long we sat in that room. The ticking of the clock had become background noise, and the white, overly sterile walls and floor gave no sense of the outside world.

I wish I could say with certainty it was still daylight outside, but the way my life had gone over the past few years, I knew nothing was certain.

Dress shoes clicked outside the door in a familiar cadence, then there was a knock on the door.

“Come in!”

And in walked my neurosurgeon, Dr. Johnathan Sherman. He and his team performed my first operation, and he assisted on the second. I was comforted by his presence because he knew me so well. He just needed another crack at it…. You know what they say about third times.

He came in and greeted us like old friends, chart in hand. He was warm, but something was… Off.

“So I’ve looked at your images, and I believe we need to operate.”

That was clear to me…

“But we’ve tried two different approaches thus far, so I think we need more of an expert in a new approach.”

New approach? Did the mass move? This wasn’t what I expected to hear, but he continued.

“I’ve spoken with the last team I worked with on your surgery, and Dr. Litvack said if he wanted to send his family to anyone, he’d choose Dr. James K. Liu up at Rutgers University.”

Now, I’d love to say I went to Rutgers, met with Dr. Liu, and the surgery healed me 100%. That’d be such a “happily ever after ending,” but as I said before, this is not just a story…This is my story.

And things in my life are never that easy.

I need a Doctor

Skylar Grey sang…

“I'm runnin' out of time
I need a doctor, call me a doctor
I need a doctor, doctor
To bring me back to life”

In Dr. Dre’s song “I Need A Doctor,” and despite the peril of the moment…

I was kind of excited. I’d never been to Rutgers before, so it almost felt like a field trip. Instead of the stakes being whether my lunch would stay cold until it was time to eat, it was whether this doctor could save my life or not.

No biggie.

We had an 11 a.m. appointment, so we had to leave before sunrise. My parents and I loaded up in the car and drove north for four or five hours to Rutgers University Hospital. We didn’t sit in the waiting room long, which to me was a good sign.

We were led to a patient room full of diagrams, posters, and pamphlets about the human body. The room had strong orange and brown accents as opposed to the white sterility at the other hospital.

The room was mostly quiet. My mom was sitting in the chair, her hands tightly clasped. My dad paced around the room, his arms folded across his chest. I sat on the exam table swinging my legs like a toddler.

My parents were anxious, but I felt strangely calm. I had no reason to be, but I didn’t question it. Maybe my spirit knew something before I did. Perhaps it was the warm colors in the room. Whatever it was, I wasn’t complaining.

Knock, knock.

In walked Dr. James K. Liu. He was my height, give or take, wore glasses, and had a demeanor that felt both confident and relaxed.

He smiled and greeted us all before running the typical neuro tests. I followed his finger with my eyes, pushed against him with my arms and legs, and answered some simple questions. It took no time at all.

“Alright, Mr. Glover, you can have a seat. I can see you have some right-side deficiencies, loss of feeling, and some damage to your optic nerves…”

Yes, I was finally listening.

“I do this procedure pretty often, so I know what approach to take.”

He went on to talk about the risks of the procedure and what to expect, but my mind was already made up. Dr. James K. Liu was my guy.

“I have a conference coming up, so… What about October 12th?”

And just like that, Thursday, October 12th, 2017, was the date set for my third Brain Surgery. He told us to go to the front desk to get the financials straight, and after that, we’d be good to go.

At the front, I let my dad handle it. I was already off in my own world, thinking about the things I would do once the surgery made me 100% again. But there was a problem…

This hospital didn’t take my insurance.

Healthcare in America

Hey, 2025, thirty-one-year-old Kawan here, popping in for a moment. All the posts so far have been highlighting the most difficult moments in my life. But I wanted to point out a bigger issue. One that’s still prevalent today.

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Board (Article), “100 million Americans owe $220 billion in medical debt.”

That’s billion with a B.

In the US, the healthcare system does people a disservice. Insurance can reject your claims and tell you what kind of medicine they’ll pay for.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in most cases, they cannot deny you because of “pre-existing conditions.” The one bright spot.

Without insurance, you don’t have access to the best care, and you’ll more than likely be saddled with outrageous medical debt.

Hence, the “$220 billion,” and that was from October of last year.

I recommend asking an exhaustive number of questions to healthcare professionals, calling the insurance companies, and digging deep into the hospital websites. There’s information about payments and sliding scales buried there.

Unfortunately, the burden is placed on the patient, but a little extra work up front may save you from financial disaster down the line.

Back to 2017…

Falling Apart

Rutgers was out as far as my parents were concerned. They didn’t take my insurance, so we needed to find a place that did. Part of me didn’t fully understand what was happening. Another part of me didn’t want to.

“Things would fall into place,” people always said.

Yeah, right… More like my body would fall apart.

Over the next few weeks, I felt like a car being stripped for parts in real time. The mass on my brain caused my nervous system to go haywire, and it all started when I was typing on my computer.

I was mid-sentence when my right hand got weaker and weaker, until I couldn’t use it at all. All the dexterity and fine motor skills that I had developed in over 20 years of life evaporated in front of me like Thanos’s snap.

Remember when I couldn’t blink my left eyelid? Yeah, it didn’t stop there. A numbness began to spread all over the left side of my face, and before long, I had no feeling there.

Soon after, the vision in my left eye was nearing blindness, so I began wearing an eye patch. I developed tinnitus (constant ringing) in my left ear, so I walked around with a cotton ball doused in olive oil to calm the ringing.

Also, on the left side, inside my mouth, the feeling and taste were gone.

From the crown of my head to the top of my neck, everything on the left side was losing more functionality by the day. Like someone was turning the lights off one by one.

From the neck down, the deterioration switched over to the right side. My right leg could barely support my weight, and my right arm was useless. On top of that, a tingling sensation began and ultimately turned into numbness on the right half of my body.

So there I was, visually, auditorily, and physically impaired. I didn’t have time to feel sadness or despair, though; all of my energy was used to keep myself upright, and it was a 24/7 job.

I went from playing football, to running track, to boxing, to a hobbled-together human being who might tip over from a strong gust of wind.

I needed to find a doctor. Fast.

10-foot pole

During my physical withering, I used social media and the greater internet to search for said doctor.

I got messages with suggestions about different hospitals around the country, natural medicine, and prayers. I was open to any and everything.

My girlfriend was getting my story to publications and doing her own research. My parents were checking for local doctors. It was a full-court press until we got an appointment with a neurosurgeon.

My grandma, my parents, and I rode up to this hospital. I was feeling tired but upbeat, because this doctor was supposedly an expert.

At this point, I was walking with a cane, and every step felt like a monumental achievement. We trudged up the hallway to check in, then the waiting began.

I looked around the waiting area and saw children laughing while they ran laps around their parents. It was so carefree and cute, it put a smile on my face. A smile that immediately became a frown when I realized the left side of my mouth didn’t move.

“Must be a beautiful thing to be unrestricted.”

I could barely walk, so witnessing anyone jumping around was bittersweet.

We were finally called back, and from what I remember, the room was bigger than the typical patient room. This time, the walls and floors were a greenish-blue color. My grandma and parents stood around while I sat on the exam table.

When the doctor came in, he didn’t run any tests, take any vitals, he never even crossed the room. He didn’t want to touch me with a ten-foot pole, much less be responsible for my life.

He looked at me, and then at my parents. With a straight face, he said something I’ll never forget…

“If something isn’t done in three to six months, he will die.”

And then sent me to radiation. What a joke.

We left that day with less than we arrived with. Less gas. Fewer options. And still no doctor.

Back To Jersey

I sat at home stewing in self-pity. Nothing seemed to work out. Nobody knew what to do, and I was starting to give up. This was an unwinnable battle.

“We need a miracle.”

And just like that, one arrived.

My mom got an email from Dr. Radiation, that he, Dr. Sherman, and Dr. Liu met at a medical conference (the same one Dr. Liu said he had to go to) and discussed my case. They all concluded that Dr. Liu was the man for the job.

We were able to keep the October 12th date. We’d worry about insurance later.

We arrived at Rutgers late the night before my surgery. I had to be in the hospital at five a.m. for a 15-hour procedure.

The next morning was a blur. Elevator. Car. Doors. Elevator. Pre-op. Before I knew it, I was wheeled into the operating room.

Dr. Liu spoke to me. Tools clanged in the background. My heartbeat raced.

Then the anesthesia flowed into my lungs and… I was out.

But when I woke up, the real problems started.

The Loss

I could only see a few steps in front of me, literally and metaphorically. I had become tunnel-visioned and wholly unconcerned about the feelings of the people most intimately involved. I was on a mission, but I lost more than physical sensations. I lost perspective.

The Gift

During this time, I didn’t once think about ending it all. I felt I was on a mission to survive, but not just for my sake. For my sister, my parents, my girlfriend, my family, and friends. There was a small fire burning inside that demanded I do it for more than just me. Gone were the sorrows of the past because I’d regained the will to live.

p.s. Today while I as trying to recount events, my mom said the people at Dr. Radiation’s hospital were “assholes.” :)