From the Anthology
Emending Service: 2026 Veterans' Anthology
IT had been stalking me long before I knew “it” existed. Some might describe it as a haunting. That’s not what this was though. Hauntings require presence, forethought of some kind or another. This thing? Its sticky little everything was affecting all the aspects of my life without my or its awareness of the situation. It was along for the ride with me everywhere, through everything, whether we liked it or not.
This stalking gave me migraines. Intense, daily, and crushing pain behind my eyes. “You worry too much,” I was told. About what, I did not know.
It gaslit how I saw the world. “The music is too loud,” it screamed in my ear every day, all day, at all hours. That damned ringing in my left ear, so deafening that I couldn’t even use the phone on that side.
The wondering began. When I was walking down a hallway and for no reason was pushed into a wall, or I was swaying as I tried to stand still. What happened to my sense of balance? Just getting older, it seemed, as I mused about my younger days in the Navy during rough seas.
IT still hadn’t revealed itself. IT was still hiding, peeking at me from behind the canal.
Then came those weird tingles. Little numb spots on my lip. “You’re getting a cold sore,” my wife Teresa told me with a dismissive “Man Baby” wave of her hand.
“Go to the doctor, get someAbreva, you’ll be fine.”
I listened to my wife because she is smart. And that is how my stalker slipped up.
My doctor disagreed with Teresa. Strongly disagreed. Dr. Bailey listened to my symptoms. Took them into consideration and very calmly said, “You know, it’s probably nothing, but why don’t we get you a CAT scan? Right now.”
Me, being the trusting sort, said, “Sure,” and off I went to go get one. Skipping along: La-de-dah. Nothing in my head but straw, or so you might think.
Four hours later, I’m texting my wife, who is just as annoyed as me at this point. My scan was three hours ago. Why don’t they want me to leave?
“Mr. Chapman?”
I look up to find the blonde, impossibly young x-ray tech who ran the scan calling me.
“Yes?” I answer.
Without waiting for me, she turns and walks away.
“Follow me, please. Your doctor is on the phone.”
Relieved, I jump up.
“Since no one is rushing around, I’m guessing it was nothing,” I say as I chase her down.
No sooner do I catch up to her than I have a telephone receiver thrust into my hand.
“Hello Kevin.”
“Hey Dr. Bailey. Nobody’s rushing around so it’s all good, right?” I eagerly say again.
The universe has a terrible sense of humor, so there isn’t a blip of hesitation in her usual, normal voice when Dr. Bailey replies, “No, you have a mass on your brain. Have a good night. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
There are few horrors in life that match having your view of yourself, and the world, laid low in a single sentence. The bomb she dropped with her blasé reveal blew my mind literally. No lead up or softening of the news—just a crack of the bat to back of the head!
Terror like this is usually found between the pages of a book. Sometimes, it’s revealed by the brutality of war. But late on this Valentine’s Day night, in this dimly lit radiology lab, I found out that I was carrying it inside me.
Another minute or so of conversation took place after Dr. Bailey broke the news, but you’ll have to pardon me for not being able to remember it. Taking in her announcement was as far as I got before the mental “Wha…?” set in.
Movies and TV never show how hard it is to drive with your eyes full of tears. Someone who is out of their mind with disbelief and grief should not attempt it. Especially if you consider yourself a traditionally masculine man.
Thus began my introduction to my stalker. A hitchhiker of the mind. Long medical terms conspired to hide the truth about IT from me. Sure, go ahead and tell me not to worry. Say that a Vestibular Schwannoma Acoustic Neuroma can kill you given time but at least It isn’t cancer. It’s the best brain tumor to have.
I’m sorry did you just say this can kill me? Oh, Fuck you. I’m gonna panic now.
The internet, being the internet, did its level best to tell me where it was, but not what caused this extremely rare brain tumor my common ass now had.
Brevity aside, Dr. Bailey was on the ball when it came to my treatment. She had already scheduled me with a neurosurgeon.
With hand in tightly gripping hand, Teresa and I met Dr. Hu. A highly regarded expert with the bedside manner of a bored mechanic. He promised to make this better, and we believed him.
So began the six weeks of torturous waiting. It was filled with worrying about my life and wife. Trying to decide how many people to tell in that time.
Do I tell the Quidnunc at work, the office gossip with a literal nationwide network of informants? (You know that they will ask in detail what you’re going through for their personal delight.)
How about your manager? Your friends? Family?
That aunt who will say it’s because you didn’t join the Marines instead of the Navy like she said?
The people at church who will say you won’t get better because you don’t believe in God enough?
In the end, it doesn’t matter because the symptoms start getting worse right after diagnosis.
Oh crap, my face is getting number by the day.
Oh shit. Now I really can’t walk straight.
People notice and start asking questions. You lie; they don’t believe you.
You lie because you’re afraid. Afraid you’ll break down in the middle of the office floor if you have to say it out loud one more damn time. They don’t believe you because they have eyes. Eyes that luckily don’t see the day before surgery that you have gotten your head shaved in a vain attempt to control the fear.
Not that it would matter. The day of the surgery, it all comes out. I wake up three days later to a flood of curiosity masked as concern, pity, honest support, and apathy. Apathy is the worst. When you’ve worked for a company for 26 years, you expect a little loyalty somewhere in return. But that is naïve.
Companies don’t care about you or me. I’m not profit or profitable to my company. I’m a liability. Completely deaf in one ear. I need a cane to walk. Frequent, sudden bouts of vertigo are the norm. Left turns, nope, not anymore. Looking up? Hold onto something first. Ringing in my ears, even louder now. Blocking out all sound at times.
The company was fine when the government wanted me to work from home during Covid. Even happy, since I could still do a good job. However, now that I need to work from home, I’m told I should feel grateful. Grateful because I am only the seventh person nationwide that they’ve approved of doing so.
Hearing the word “grateful” used by a corporate lawyer regarding how I should feel spoils any meaning the word may have. Why is it so hard? Why did I have to pull my fingernails out to prove I need disability accommodation? The answer shocked me.
“If we let you do it,” AT&T’s HR lawyer explained, “everyone will ask for it.”
I maybe…probably…definitely raised my voice when I replied, “Well, if they have brain tumor, let them.”
The lawyer remained unmoved. But I did get to work from home.
Thank Heaven for small favors.
A year goes by. I get questions upon questions from co-workers who want the real scoop, and “Of course, [they] won’t tell anybody else.”
(Remind me again, what’s corporate email-speak for "piss off"?)
My breaking point is met one day by my manager when he has the gall to say, “Hey. Come get your shit. It’s in the way.”
Kenny knows it’s not recommended that I drive my old commute of thirty miles each way. Yet I still “need” to come get my things. “Or else” is implied. I am confused though. How are an employee’s things “in the way”?
Well, Teresa drives me to the office, and we find that my desk is snapped out of existence. Everything is gone. My desk? Poof. My shit? Shoved into boxes somewhere else. As we look through the boxes, boxes that Teresa and I must carry to our car ourselves, the busybodies start to swarm like locusts.
“Can I have that?” one asks.
“My coat?”
“Yeah.”
“You want my work shirts too?” I ask sarcastically.
“Yeah. Can I?”
More disgusted than defeated, I give in.
“Take ‘em.”
Off the greedy coworkers go like Gollum with their Precious.
As it turns out, my shit was in the way of them having an empty desk doing nothing. I guess boxes look like clutter to someone. Management was burdened by an employee’s shit waiting for them to come back.
The VA, however, does come through. My Vestibular Schwannoma Acoustic Neuroma is “service connected,” they say. Probably because I showed up at the C&P exam with pictures of me in front of burn pits in Kuwait. Or because the USS LaSalle tried to make water inside of an oil slick and what we drank for a month tasted like straight WD-40.
With that knowledge, Teresa and I began running the numbers on the ride home for the exam, and they didn’t lie. If we stayed within our means, I could retire. We wait for my fifteen-month follow-up CAT scan (at the VA) to decide. The report reads “no regrowth.” I’m in the clear. Screw it. I’m out.
Let’s do this.
One short month later, that same uncaring office is throwing me a goodbye party. Everyone says they’ll miss me. I keep my mouth shut, but in the back of my mind I’m thinking, “Haven’t you already moved on without me?” Then, I realize…they are just being pretending…to be nice.
Retirement is depressing—a downhill slide that kills if you don’t find a new purpose. Sure, I get published in a few books. Work with the Veterans Administration. Appear on the radio on Veteran’s Day. But nothing really needs me.
The soft line between depression and anger lays at my feet. It’s begging me to embrace both when out of the blue, a light shines down on a magic answer. A passing comment online tells me the VA has a program made just for people like me.
Vocational Rehab and Education. Cue the dramatic pause with theme music. I’m going back to college—for fun.
January of 2025, Teresa packs me a lunch and sends me off to school. I sit down in my first beginner level college class for over twenty-five years. There are more than a few obvious looks of “Hey, who lost their grandpa?” Despite that, new friends are made, including other vets.
This is great. I never liked school growing up, hated it to be honest, but this is awesome. I am actually having fun. I’m learning. I’m an A student. I’m a teacher’s pet. Who in the hell would’ve guessed this?
(My wife, for one. She said she knew I would do fine. Did I mention she’s smart?)
First semester down, I treat myself with something special. Tickets to a four-day heavy metal and punk music festival. Sonic Temple in Columbus, Ohio. This is where I get mad; I get stupid; and I go for broke.
This is not a festival for beginners. There are rowdy, hardcore mosh pits at these shows. My crippled ass needs a cane to walk. I jumped into eleven of these mosh pits. Getting punched, kicked, more bruised, and bloodier after each one.
At fifty-five, I barely hold my own going up against eighteen to twenty-year olds who don’t hold back. My anger gains their respect. My cane is permanently bowed and bent now. The term “self-destructive” doesn’t quite cover this kind of jack-assery.
It’s capped off with three straight hours in a Metallica pit, fighting for my life with every rage-filled bang of my head. That’s exactly what it feels like too.
Why? You may ask. Why am I this dumb? Because the week before, I went in for yet another follow-up CAT scan. Just seven months since the last one. On day one of the festival, before the gates opened, before the first crowd formed, my doctor’s office called. The nurse on the line is just as brief as Dr. Bailey was the first time.
“IT is back,” she says.
Epilogue: Everything you’ve read here is a true account of the author’s lived experience. At the time of original submission for this account to be published, the next day, the writer was scheduled for a second more intense and complicated surgery to try and remove IT for good. Survival was not guaranteed.
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Kevin Chapman is US Navy Persian Gulf combat vet, two-time Acoustic Neuroma brain tumor survivor, and writer. He has run the Cleveland Eastside Writer’s Group for over 15 years. He lives in Mentor, Ohio with his wife of 33 years, Teresa. Rounding that out are his two sons, Jacob and Nicholas, who are sick of his Dad jokes. He is currently undergoing more radiation therapy for the tumors.
