Dramatic Plot Twist

Inside Fort Matanzas

In a movie, whenever the camera pans across a scene of natural splendor, you can expect something bad to happen. It’s a cinema trope. Make the protagonist comfortable, and then drop a boulder on him. Without conflict, story doesn’t exist. So if a director says, “Let’s capture this stunning snowcapped mountain range glistening in the sun,” you can guarantee an avalanche is coming.

Last week I took Shade camping with the YMCA Indian Guides at Princess Place Preserve in Bunnell, Florida, about 15 minutes from St. Augustine. It’s a 1500-acre parcel of bucolic Florida wilderness. I never liked that word bucolic. It sounds like a respiratory infection. However, I think it fits here as the park is home to historic buildings such as an old livery stable, equestrian trails, a huge salt marsh, massive live oak stands, and Florida’s first in-ground swimming pool, fed by an artesian spring. It’s the epitome of a Southern pastoral setting nestled on the shore of the Matanzas River.

Standing atop Fort Matanzas

During the campout, we visited Fort Matanzas National Monument, which guarded St. Augustine’s back door. It’s about 14 miles south on the Matanzas River. The approach is dramatic. We started on the nature path which passed the banks where Spanish soldiers slaughtered a few hundred lost French soldiers who had surrendered. That’s how the fort got its name, which loosely translates to “slaughter.” We took a pontoon ferry across the river toward the looming fortress, giving us a good look from an invader’s standpoint. Guards in traditional Spanish soldier uniforms walk about and explain elements of the three-story stone fort such as the big cannons pointing down river to stop those nasty Brits or Frenchies from sneaking up and causing havoc. Shade climbed up the stairs and ladders to the top, where a large flag flapped to Hurricane Jaoquin’s distant exhales while gray clouds boiled overhead. We got a pretty cool pic of our entire group on the roof.

Fishing in the Salt Marsh

Afterward we went fishing in the salt marshes. The sun was positioned perfectly to reflect in the mirror water the cloud-blotched blue sky. We caught no fish (I don’t think I’ve ever caught one), but the view was magnificent. As we finished fishing, Shade’s buddy Cody noticed hermit crabs on the stones by the bridge. I grabbed twenty hermit crabs to tote back to camp for crab racing. I had big plans for a betting ring. We learned that hermit crabs are extremely shy and horrible at racing and within the hour, I had returned them to the salt marsh. We spent the rest of the night enjoying bonfires and brisket.

A beautiful weekend. From a movie standpoint, you couldn’t get more ominous.

The plot conflict came on the Tuesday afterward when Aitza took Shade to see Dr. Trumble. A few months back they performed an angiogram on Shade and discovered that he still has a small nidus, that little tangle of arteries and veins that caused his bleed four years ago. The Gamma Knife treatment performed on him in December 2011 destroyed most but not all of the arterio-venous malformation.

Here’s the dilemma. With each year, his risk of a bleed increases by 1%. The doc said if you’re 70-years old, no big deal. You may get up to a 10% chance of a re-bleed. You’re nearing the end of your rental agreement anyway, so to speak, and making big renovations wouldn’t be worth the risk. But a 16-year-old boy still has a good 60-70 years, maybe more. So in your later years, your percentage of a re-bleed may be 60-70%. The procedure has an 80-90% chance of destroying the rest of the nidus completely. I hate math.

The procedure has its own risks. The location in the pons (the brain stem, which is a dense nerve bundle) leaves him open to some more damage to surrounding healthy nerves, especially a few cranial nerves. Shade’s already got facial palsy and can’t shut his eye, but we don’t know how much more damage to his face it may cause. His coordination might be more at risk, too. Plus, the brain swells a bit when you shoot it full of radiation. Go figure.

The full effect of any damage is unknown until they do the procedure. Afterward, we’d have to wait three years to see if the procedure was totally successful. This would also be his last shot at destroying it because of the level of radiation Shade’s brain would absorb from this second Gamma Knife procedure.

Of course, damage from a bleed would be much more devastating. If it happened at all. Whatever decision we make, it’s going to affect the plot of this movie. I just wish Shade wasn’t the protagonist and that the dramatic plot twist didn’t involve his poor abused brain.