Shades of Grey

This is the first installment of my NaNoWriMo novel, "Shades of Grey" I wrote this today from 2:30 to 3:30 AM... yes, that's right, I've been up all night, but that's okay because I'm sky high... I will update as the day progresses... There is no picture with this post because no Blogger kept barfing everytime I tried to upload one...

He tried to warn me. He did his level best to warn me, to warn us all, but we, in our ignorance, paid him little heed. Oh sure, I thought it was just because he hated squirrels. Most dogs like to chase them. But my dog had a special reason for hating them. He knew what they were really attempting to do.

Even as he got old, and he got very old, no matter what, those squirrels would get him up off his dog bed. Up and barking! He would chase those squirrels away with such vigor. It always amused me the care he took to chase away those little puffballs of grey fur.

When the neighbor’s cats decided that liked our yard better than theirs, my poor old dog didn’t give them so much as a woof! No, “hey you! Outta here!” for them. It was pretty funny. We would come into the kitchen to see one of them chowing down on his dog kibble, inside his dog food bin. His attitude was “eh, let ‘em be, no harm, no foul.” One of them was always getting inside at night… some watchdog he was... not even a bark to let us know what was up… The neighbor’s cats would be on my counter top, eating my bread. I finally had to go get a metal breadbox.

But if a squirrel so much as poked it’s little head anywhere near our yard, well he’d be up and barking. It would wake him out of a sound sleep, and believe you me, that dog could sleep soundly.

It is only now that I know what he was trying to do. I couldn’t understand at the time, but now I know better. Now we all do. Well, the ones who believe understand anyway. Invaders.

My name is Debby Shiloh, and this is my story. I thought I was going to grow up and have a normal life. Grow up, go to college, meet a great guy, have kids, a great career, you know, all the normal things. And for the most part, I had those things. I did grow up. I went to a great college where I majored in Computer Information Systems, got a great job. I have a wonderful husband Greg and a really great son, Jack. Well, as great as teen-aged boys gets I suppose. I have a really great job as a Network Analyst for (really Big Company) where I get to travel to set up and trouble shoot networks all over the country. I have a beautiful house just east of Seattle. I live in the posh neighborhood of Bellevue, which always makes me laugh.

My house and neighborhood were built in the early ‘50’s. Mid-century archetecture split level house, a perfect example of that style of building. Yes, interiour decorating and archecitureal details are one of my many hobbies. I remodeled my kitchen practically single handedly. I had a lot of time on my hands during the dot-com bust…

But everything changed when I got sick last year.

I started having all these really bad headaches. I mean, they were really, really bad. Searing my brain bad. And other things started going wrong, health wise too. I would have terrible fatigue, where I would sleep for days on end. I’d come home from work, and just head right for bed. Not normal behavior, not for someone who normally had lots and lots of projects. I had a lot of other weird symptoms, and I saw a lot of doctors who only wanted to treat my symptoms. As a geek, I naturally want to know the root cause of the problem; I want to know why there are symptoms. Finally, I got to the cause of my trouble all right.

I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I will never forget that day. Never I think. I guess its’ something that sort of sticks with you. I don’t think that it couldn’t not stick with you. Something you always remember. Your first kiss, your first time you have sex, the first time you get a traffic ticket, the birth of your baby. Some things just stay with you. Etched into your memory as permanent as can be.

Greg wasn’t able to make that one appointment. He had a meeting that he had to attend, and so he didn’t go with me. We didn’t think it would be anything monumental. None of our other appointments with the doctors ever turned up anything, so why would this one be any different? Famous last words as that turns out.

This was my third appointment with this particular doctor. The first two were not very impressive, just your normal specialist doctor’s appointments I guess. I do remember that I was running a little late, I’d been really tired that day, and I felt like I was moving in slow motion. Like I was in one of those allergy commercials, in a fog or a blur. A haze. Anyway, I just was not my normal me, if that makes any sense. I’d been to get an MRI and a MRV and the doctor had the results from the radiologist.

The doctor’s nurse had me go into the doctor’s office and wait while she was with another patient. I was listening to my MP3 player; I had my mix of New Wave dance music playing. Devo was playing. At the time, the irony escaped me, now I have to laugh about it. I was sipping my cooling latte. I know it’s a cliché, but sometimes the things we do are clichés. Lattes in Seattle. Almost as much a cliché as the rain, although just as true. I heard her come in, and I took off my headphones.

She sat behind her desk, put the report down, and just looked at me. What doctor just looks at you? Then she told me. Told me what they found. What the radiologist found.

Tumor. The word haunted me for a long time. Or at any rate, it felt like a long time. I know that it echoed in my head, tumor, tumor, tumor. Like the word itself was something terrible. Something that I couldn’t accept all at once. That I had to keep coming back to.

There is an expression, that someone is dogging you. I always thought that expression was just something colorful, but then I had a dog that actually did dog me. She would follow me everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. To the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen. Everywhere I went, that dog had to be right with me too. She just couldn’t stand to not be near me. She dogged me. Sure, it got a little annoying at times when I’d want to be in the bathroom, by myself, thank you very much. But it was also endearing.

The tumor dogged me. There was nothing endearing about it. Tumor.

Tumor.

Tumor.