Crazy Moment
By Max Merget
That one moment, that one event that will change who you are started when I was three but never came to mind until I was 17 years old. My name is Max and I have been a brain cancer patient since I was a toddler. People always ask, “How did you know you had a brain tumor and what was it like?” The answer is simple if you have seen it first-hand.
My family and some friends were enjoying a weekend in Canada at our cottage. I was only a little boy when my right leg started to drag on the ground. My right arm and hand clenched up, making it look as if I was some dinosaur with a short and useless arm. My speech patterns started to get distorted, making it hard for my parents to understand me. That is when you know you are having brain issues.
My Mom scheduled an appointment with our family doctor that Monday. My pediatrician knew something was wrong and recommended we get to the University of Michigan’s Mott Children’s Hospital for further testing. Doctors there ran tests and an MRI of my brain, which exposed a massive cancerous brain tumor. The doctors were shocked when they looked at my images. They were confused to see my minor imperfections considering that my cancer took up two thirds of my head. Surgery was performed the next day. All of this was just the beginning play in the cards that I was dealt.
My cancer came back at age four and again at seven. Throughout my life, I’ve had brain surgery three times, radiation therapy twice, and chemotherapy once. I do not have much memory from the early years of my life. I’ve had so many horrific experiences in my first 10 years of life that my brain decided to block them out. My only memories of my childhood comes from pictures, home videos, and the stories my parents tell me every once and a while. The memories come across with two perspectives. I look to first understand what happened to me. I can’t help myself to then understand my parents’ decisions and sacrifices they had to make.
It was the beginning of my senior year of high school and life was treating me well. I was doing well in school and got accepted to Grand Valley State University. My 10-year mile marker for being cancer free was coming up that year. I was told after 10 years of being cancer free, the chances of the cancer returning were slim. Every year, I would go in for MRI brain scans and for checkups. I always felt that the MRIs were pointless as I was feeling great, ready to conquer the world. I had cancer when I was a child and now I am in remission, was my thought. But then I was called in for an off-schedule MRI. Apparently, there was some scar tissue that my neurosurgeon saw and just to make sure, they wanted another scan. You go in for the scan and then you come back the next day and meet with the doctors to review the scans. The day to review the scans was my 10-year mile marker anniversary.
I will never forget this day. My appointment was at 11 am. My parents and I knew something was up, but I was staying optimistic. The car ride to Mott Hospital was quiet with some unanswered questions that would be answered soon enough. It was if I was driving only to get bad news. If my cancer came back, would I have to have brain surgery for a fourth time? How far would my treatment set me back? Sitting in the waiting room was never so painful and I was very eager for the nurse to call my name. Finally, she did, and I hopped out of my seat. My neurosurgeon has spina bifida and uses a Segway. It is a little hard for her to get around and we are usually in the office before she arrives, except for this appointment. I was the first to walk in with my mom and dad following. The meeting room was small with a sanitary smell. I was being quiet while my parents made small talk with my neurosurgeon and my oncologist. I was standing in the back by an open chair waiting for the news. My neurosurgeon spun around in her own chair and looked right at me. With a very powerful and determined voice she said, “Max, It’s back. Your brain cancer is back.”
I dropped my jaw and fell into the chair as if my legs fell out from under me. Thoughts rushed through my mind quickly without any resolve. Having the idea that I’d never have to go through this again and all the time I had put into functioning normally had just been an illusion. I learned that my cancer is very rare and that it can come back whenever it wants to. When I was three, I was one out of thirteen people in the country to be diagnosed. Also, my cancer is normally found in the spine. For some reason, mine is located in the frontal lobe of my brain. This was the first time that I actually knew what I had to undertake. Throughout the years, my parents never brought up this topic. It was difficult to handle my emotions and to keep my composure. As I was sitting in the back thinking about my life and how it was going to change, my neurosurgeon was going through my different options of removing the cancer. I had three options to choose from: surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Ultimately I was going to side with whatever my neurosurgeon thought. She has been with me since I was three and I trust every decision she makes.
For 10 years of my life, I had the privilege to walk out of that hospital with a smile on my face. Now I was leaving with more questions than I had coming in. Words cannot explain the feeling of having an alien-like substance just eating away at your brain. The car ride home was extremely silent. All of the memories and emotions of my childhood came rushing through my parents’ minds. I could see from the back seat a single tear run down my mom’s face. Seeing that one tear only emphasized the hardship that I was yet again going to live through. Once I got back home, I went upstairs to my room and slammed the door in anger that my cancer was out of my hands to control. I had to accept my situation and get back to living my life. I took a shower, then regrouped so I could continue my day. I even went to work washing dishes at a pizza place. Going back to your normal life is the best mental treatment.
After a long seven-hour shift, I walked out to my car to leave when I noticed a lot of notifications on my phone. The word got out through my parents telling their friends about my news. I was trending on Twitter and everyone in my world had contacted me via Facebook, email, text, and calls. Then it came to me, maxyourbrian.org. I stated my own foundation for cancer research. I would have fundraiser events to educate the public about what cancer patients have to go through and the importance of funding the research done at Michigan Medicine. The funds supported the research time in the labs and paid for equipment. I raised $43,000 to fund my neurosurgeon’s research.
My cancer will never succeed in bringing me down, but it will always be a part of my life. Once someone asked me, “what would life be like without cancer?” I had to think about it for a minute and I simply replied, “I don’t know who I’d be without cancer, but I love who I am with it.”
About the Author
We are not here to live, but to thrive. Max Merget finds himself to be very fortunate to have been able to bounce back and survive brain cancer for the fifth reoccurrence. The MYB team will help raise awareness and money so that brain cancer patients can have a healthier life