Luminita was the only albino I ever treated. Her eyes had a pinkish glow like a rabbit, and her hair was white and feathery around her face. She suffered from low-grade glioma, a cancer fatal in its tendency towards excessive growth. For the past month, she was under the care of a neurosurgeon, before he turned her over to me, to have her mind evaluated before surgery.
I put Luminita through a series of neuropsychological tests to assess her brain performance under the stress of the tumor. We met in my office to discuss the results. She failed the verbal tests, due to her incapacity to write—a classic symptom of Frontal Agraphia. “It’s very common with tumors in the left frontal hemisphere.” I motioned to a model of a plastic brain on my desk. “Especially here, in Exner’s area. This controls your ability to form letters and words.”
Luminita lowered her eyes and considered the situation with quiet intensity. I studied her face, and felt certain that we had met before. She looked up and caught me staring.
I told her there were worse brain disorders. “Once I treated this guy who suffered from Broca’s Aphasia. He was so frustrated with his incapacity to answer my questions, that all he could do was utter the word shit again and again.”
Luminita began massaging her temples. “You’ll have to forgive me, Dr. Levin. I’ve met so many doctors these past few weeks, it’s kind of hard to think straight.”
“Are you nervous about the surgery?” I asked. The operation was in two weeks.
She nodded slowly. “Terrified. There are just so many risks: paralysis, death, blindness, seizure, coma, change in personality. Change in personality. I mean, is that even possible?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “Have you been reading the booklet?”
The nurses gave a thick handbook to patients and family to understand what to expect during all stages of treatment. I never liked reminding my patients to read the handbook—though it was standard procedure to do so.
“I read all of it,” Luminita said. “Cover to cover. Then I went online and did some more research.”
I told her not to get too worried about anything she found online. “You can’t trust the internet,” I said. “It will only make you more upset.”
She smiled. “Now you sound like my father.”
“Your father?” The comparison intrigued me. “Why is that?”
“Oh, it’s just his way,” Luminita said. “My sister and I used to call him Dr. Dictator when we were kids.”
I couldn’t picture her sister. Perhaps they were albino twins. “Your father practices medicine?”
“No, my father is a shrink,” she said. “But he’s retired now, only analyzes golf strokes and crossword puzzles these days.”
She asked to look at the MRIs again. Some of my patients liked to bring their charts as a way to help them talk about the cancer, and Luminita was no exception. Her brain floated against a black screen; white light shinning through the hemispheres, outlining wrinkles and crevices in tissue cavity. The tumor spread itself over the frontal lobe like a cirrus cloud.
The measure of Luminita’s calm fascinated me. I expected anger, tears, sobbing—a breakdown to suit the moment. I also expected a comforting, but bewildered husband, stroking her arm. Yet in all my years as a neuropsychologist, my patients never failed to surprise me. Once a man tore down his MRIs and tried to eat them. Another vomited on my shoes. And one woman traveled all the way from India to have a tapeworm removed from her brain. When she asked if she could take it home with her, I told her she might have to check with customs.
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