For Just One More Day with You

20. Decisions

20. Decisions

Scott and Mitch sat in silence at the kitchen table as Connie and Rick walked their guests out, an hour later.

Mitch felt sick.

"At least they wouldn't cut out chunks of my brain," Scott half-heartedly teased, quietly.

"No, they would just shock it. Repeatedly. For the rest of your life."

Scott shrugged. "At least there would be a better chance of me having a longer 'rest of my life' to live. Right?"

Mitch nodded, shutting his eyes. "You'd need a... pacemaker."

"Yeah, goodbye aspiring underwear model career with that thing sticking out of my chest," Scott teased again. But Mitch locked eyes with him, and he frowned. "Sorry. I know. I'm doing it again." He leaned forward, grabbing Mitch's hand. "It's not technically a pacemaker though. My heart would be fine."

Mitch shook his head. "You don't know that. She said that one of the side effects could be heart problems... stroke... brain bleed..."

"But if it works?" Scott urged, squeezing Mitch's hand with a small smile. "And for a lot of people it really reduces how many seizures they have. And the severity of them..."

"You'd still need medication. You'd still have seizures."

"But they would be less likely to kill me."

"Yeah, but you'd be more likely to die of one of those other things..."

They stared at each other for a moment. "You're right."

Mitch appreciated that Scott wasn't becoming angry with him for voicing his concerns.

For the past hour, he had been utterly horrified by Dr. Hammond's proposal, watching as Rick and Connie nodded along as they looked at her documents that were on the table. Pictures of the device, timelines, testing procedures, Scott's most recent MRI results. It was too much to bear.

He looked up at Kevin at one point, who was looking at him with a concerned gaze. The older man mimed taking a deep breath, and Mitch complied, taking on of his own. Kevin smiled softly, nonverbally indicating, 'It's going to be okay.'

Kevin would never put Scott's life at risk unless he thought it was truly the best option. Right?

This doctor, as it turned out, had helped to develop the most recent model of DBS.

Deep Brain Stimulation.

Yes, it was as terrifying as it sounded. Mitch found that out quickly.

It would require two surgeries. The first was when they would go into Scott's skull and put in the electrodes. The second was when they would go into his chest, to implant the battery that would send electrical pulses through those electrodes to stop seizures at their source.

Then would begin the long and arduous task of pinpointing the mechanism to react to the seizures in the perfect location, at the perfect time.

It sounded like a lot of trial and error, and it sounded too risky.

He had been assured that it wasn't an invasive procedure, but Mitch didn't care. Any form of digging into a brain and a chest was too invasive for his liking. She also tried to convince him that it was far less dangerous than any of the resection brain surgery procedures that the Hoyings had previously explored, but the list of side effects of the stimulation itself, even years down the line, sounded miserable.

He looked down at the list in front of him, again.

Numbness or tingling sensations
Muscle tightness of the face or arm
Speech problems
Balance problems
Lightheadedness
Vision problems, such as double vision
Mood changes, such as anger and depression