Adrian Bacon

Update: The surgery went as well as could be expected. She is recovering and back home in Oregon. Thank you for all the emails and such.

I have bad news. My older sister has a tumor growing in her spinal cord. I can’t really go into details for her privacy’s sake, but she will be going to Barrows Neurological Institute here in Phoenix Arizona. Strangely enough, Barrows happens to be the only place her health insurance pays for when it comes to this type of thing, even though she doesn’t actually live here in Arizona.

So, this is actually going to happen pretty fast, like in the next few weeks, which is good for her, because she is experiencing an inhuman amount of pain and is maxed out and can’t take any more pain medication without seriously risking her life.

Unfortunately, this is also a very high risk surgery. So much so that it has been put off as long as possible due to the potential consequences of the surgery. There is an excellent chance that she will not be walking, or have much lower body function/control after the surgery. Barrows is the best in the United States for this, but the nature of what’s going on with her is going to make it extremely difficult to remove the tumor without doing major damage to her spinal cord.

The effect on the family has been fairly devastating. She’s the oldest sibling of the children in our family, and one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and doesn’t deserve any of this, and yet has taken it all in stride. Almost as if it where happening to someone else and not to her. For the rest of us, it’s been very nerve wracking. Literally. Seeing her with her struggles to do the simplest of things, and knowing it’s being caused by a cancer in her back that you can’t do anything about makes me feel sick to my stomach.

All I want to do is crawl into a little hole and hide, but, I can’t. I’m her younger brother. The guy who has a house in Phoenix Arizona located less than 10 minutes from Barrows. The guy who’s making a room available to her in his house while she’s not in the hospital. The guy who’s going to pretty much see this whole thing go down in a very up close an personal fashion. The guy whose going to be right there helping her with whatever she needs because she probably won’t be able to do it herself. I’m scared to death, and I’m not the sick one, she is. Fortunately, I’m not alone. Phoenix is home to most of our extended family, including our parents, so I will have a fair amount of help. But still. I’m scared. I’m scared for her.