My Short Story

My Short Story

It sounded like someone thumping on a door with a hammer.  Knock, knock, knock was all I could hear as I lay in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine, or MRI as it’s known to lay people.  I was scheduled for a MRI due to some complications with my growth.  The complication was that I was not growing.  I had always lived a normal life. I was born in Lancaster, Texas to loving parents, A.C. and Kimberley Brown. I was the youngest of three. I have a sister, Alexis, four years older than me and a brother, A.C. III, two years older than me.  In the second grade, my dad changed careers and we packed our bags and moved to Greenwood, Arkansas.  From there on out, life was good. I had no trouble making friends and was extremely involved in my community and school.  But as I moved up to junior high, I noticed a change in all my friends.  They were all starting puberty. They began the transition of boyhood to manhood.  All my friends were gaining a foot in height, facial hair, deeper voices, and sideburns.  But how did I measure up? I was 15 years old and looked like an eight year old, exactly four feet eight inches tall with a size five shoe and still shopping in the kids’ department at Old Navy.  “Mom there’s something wrong with me,” I said. “Elliott. You’re fine”, she assured me.  “You’re just a late bloomer,” she said.  These words always echoed in my head. When will I start growing? Before bed, I would pray to God that I would grow overnight. I wondered sometimes if I would ever grow period.
  Since I was otherwise healthy, the doctors only had two conclusions for my lack of growth:  1, low hormone levels or 2, a tumor on my pituitary gland.  The pituitary gland is the gland that controls growth hormones in your brain.  I took a test to see how much hormone my body was producing.  I was told I couldn’t eat the night before the test, which devastated me.  I love food and I love to eat.  I come from a long line of food eaters.  My sister and brother, being the sick and sadistic people they are, brought home KFC, my favorite food and restaurant, and ate it right in front of me.  Throughout the whole meal, they were licking their fingers and saying “oh” and “yeah”.
The next day, we arrived at Arkansas Children’s Hospital around 8 a.m. after a three hour journey to Little Rock, Arkansas. I brought my friends, Travis Sandifer and Tyler Wilson, along with me to the hospital to keep me company during my visit.  I felt sick due to the lack of breakfast.  I was also tired seeing how I did not sleep well the night before.  I lay on a bed and was hooked up to an I.V.  They injected growth hormones into my body while a machine measured the levels.  Throughout the four hour test, my blood was checked every fifteen minutes.  The injections made me sick and eventually caused me to pass out.  I was told the sooner I passed out, the better.  That way I would not be aware of everything that was happening to me.  Every time the nurse came to draw blood from my arm, Travis would turn pale and start making purging noises, “ewggh eurw guh”.  After the four hour test, a nurse came back with the results.  She coughed, cleared her throat, and said, “Elliott, we’ve got some good news and some bad news.”  Those famous words are what every patient just loves to hear!  I, being the unbelievably brave person I am, said, “Give me the bad news first.” She said, “Well, your growth hormone level is 0.01.” “What’s it supposed to be,” I replied.  “Ten,” she said.  I was shocked, “What! Wait!  Did you say ten?  And what am I, 0.01.  That’s like 1/1000.”  I then said, “What’s the good news?”  She said, “You can take growth hormone shots to fix it.”
After the news breakdown, the nurse took my mom, Travis, Tyler, and me to the waiting room for an MRI.  I asked her why I was getting an MRI.  She said, “To make sure you don’t have a brain tumor on your pituitary gland.”  I thought, “Wait!  Did she say brain tumor?  Aren’t those the things that start small then get big? Don’t brain tumors kill you?”  I started worrying and began to turn the same color Travis did earlier during my blood test.  The nurse took us outside to a semi truck and then showed us in. I was puzzled. Why does a 100 million dollar hospital give MRIs in a semi truck? Can they not afford a room? Is this where they take the people who are going to die?  Am I going to die?  The truck did not help with my panicked state.  When we got inside, the nurse told me to remove everything from my pockets and take off any jewelry. She then walked me inside a room with a metal bed and a giant tube around it.  The bed pulled out of the tube and I was told to lie on it.  The nurse asked, “Did you bring an oxygen tank in?”  I said, “No, why?”  She said, “Well, someone brought in their oxygen tank last time and we weren’t aware of it.  When we turned on the MRI machine, it sucked the tank towards the machine hitting the kid in the head and killing him instantly.”  My stomach turned upside down.  I wanted to leave that room as soon as possible.  This nurse was not at the top of my list for favorite people of the day. Then the MRI started. Knock, knock.  I thought, “What was that? Was that a door?”  After about three knocks, there was a pause and then I heard it.  It sounded like Lloyd Christmas from the movie, Dumb and Dumber, when he said, “Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” And that’s exactly what it was - the most annoying sound in the world. Ehhhhhgggggnnrehhhggnnn! That’s all I could hear for about 2 hours.  When the test was finally over, we had to wait about two hours for the results.  The test came back both negative and positive. I didn’t have a tumor on my pituitary gland but I did have one in the back of my head. “What?” I asked. “Is it bad?” The doctor said it was benign which meant it was non cancerous and it wouldn’t hurt me.  He said it was about the size of quarter and that I probably had it my whole life without even knowing it.  Touching my head, he continued by saying while I was on the growth hormone shots, they would monitor it and make sure it would not get any bigger.  The reason for this is that growth-hormone injections cause everything to grow even tumors.  That day was the most emotional highs and lows I have ever experienced.
I am currently taking growth hormone shots just as I have everyday for the past two years.  I have grown 13 inches and the tumor has stayed in check thus far.  This experience has made me thankful for good health and good healthcare and ever so grateful for my loving and supportive family and friends.