You may think that when a doctor suggests an urgent surgery, he is out to dupe you, but sometimes, it’s just to make sure you don’t fall off the edge

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There is a 16-year-old girl admitted with vomiting,” the ward doctor called to inform. “She also had some stomach cramps, and the medicine guys worked her up for a gastro bug, food poisoning, and typhoid but found nothing,” he added. “Could she be pregnant?” the curious cat in me inquired. “They ruled that out too with a test,” he confirmed. “Since yesterday, she also started complaining of a severe headache and was unsteady on her feet, so the consultant in charge ordered a brain MRI and found a large tumour in her head. Hence, we are calling you,” he gave me the gist. 

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When I went to see her, she was sitting with her hand in her head. This is not a good sign, I thought to myself. I peered into her eyes with a fundoscope, a device that allows you to see the optic nerve head. It was fuzzy and red as opposed to sharp and white, suggesting raised pressure inside the brain. She spoke coherently with a gentle smile even though she was in pain, respectfully doing her best to answer all my questions. I was pleasantly surprised; I don’t expect anything civil or gracious from today’s teenagers, even if they are unwell. “There is something wrong with the world today, I don’t know what it is,” a song that Aerosmith sang 30 years ago often plays in my head on loop when I see the kids of today.

The MRI showed a large heart-shaped tumour at the back of her head in the area called the cerebellum. I circled the tumour out to her father, a short bald guy, who stood there with hands folded but slightly apart as if to catch........

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