A Fight to Remember

There's No Time Pt. 1

Enjoy!

Amelia shoved the MRI scan onto the lightboard and pointed, "There," she said.

"What?" I squinted, "I don't see-"

"There!" her finger jabbed at a point in the middle of Meredith's brain. 

I still couldn't see, her pinky was in the way, "Amy-," I yanked the scan out and held it up to the lamp light by the desk. I had to see the whole thing, the whole picture. Gazing at it with a sharp eye, I tried to see what she saw. A tumor? Bleed? Aneurysm? But other than signs of a brain damaged by Alzheimer's, I didn't see anything... "Amy, there's nothing-," Wait. Right there... the middle cerebral artery?

"See it?" Amy hovered behind me.

A slight bulge of the middle cerebral artery near Wernke's area in the center of the brain. Dread filled my heart, rising to my throat. "What does this mean?" I asked.

Amy's sigh matched my dreadful question. "Dr. Berk won't use his technique on Meredith as long as this is in her brain. So... I guess you got your wish... well kinda."

"Amy-," I nearly snapped. It wasn't my wish for Meredith to have a fusiform aneurysm in her brain, and while I admit I was cautious, it wasn't my wish for her to refuse surgery.

"Sorry," Amy apologized, realizing she hit a nerve.

But the hurt was already forgotten, replaced with a deeper pain. Hopelessness. "So that's it then?" I lowered the scan and sank back on the couch. Meredith's own treatment using ultrasonic waves may actually put her at risk for a rupture. So... there goes that idea.

My sister sat down beside me, eyeing the scan in my hands. "Well... we could... what if we clipped it?"

I looked back at the scan. The aneurysm, despite its tiny size, was operable with an invasive craniotomy. But with Meredith's history of heart problems... "It's too risky." I said. "We can't even do this endovascularly."

"We can't just give up," Amy replied. "This is Meredith. Your soon to be wedded wife—"

"I know," I said, "I know." I'd just spent the last ten years of my life without her, it seemed impossible to imagine a future without her now. I needed her. Alzheimer's and all, I needed her quirkiness, her gentle acceptance of everybody... I needed her intelligence, her determination... her warmth against me in bed...

Are you watching me sleep?

It's just, you snore a little...

Memories flashed. Emotions swelled. My heart thumped- thumped. It was like I was running out of time, out of space, the world spun and contracted on me.

Panic.

I was panicking. I closed my eyes, rubbed my face.

Look, we could do this another day.

There is no 'other' day. Every day is like this. Every day is a crisis. There's no time! I love you, and I do want to marry you today, but there's no time.

I looked at my wife staring out the window of the den, lost in herself. She had an aneurysm. Although it was rare type, unlikely to burst, it was a guillotine. I was emotionally spent, I didn't know what to do. Surgery or no surgery? A life with a disappearing wife... or an agonizing day and weeks of recovery with a chance of death?

I didn't know what to do about that.

But there was something I could do, right now. "I have to go." I bolted out of my chair.

Meredith...

Do you have a piece of paper?

"What? Where?" Amy asked.