When I first sent a few chapters of this out to read to a couple of friends, I asked them to comment on it, let me know what they thought. The reaction was pretty positive, a few objections here and there, but nothing that couldn't be quickly fixed.

One question I was asked was how could Eddie possibly be calm after being told that he has brain cancer? Having been in that seat myself, I can tell you that it is entirely possible. Yes, there's the initial shock reaction. My mother went into (and still is in) absolute hysterics when I told her. This doesn't help, and only makes matters worse. I realized this immediately, and knew I had to accept the fact that I had cancer. The same is true for Eddie. He's a smart man, and he knows that panicking does not help a situation. He has a moment of panic, but is quick to realize that he needs to be levelheaded about this so it can be dealt with. Trust me, running around like a chicken with your head cut off doesn't help one bit.

Just because someone settles into calmness does not mean that they aren't scared. I tried to convey that Eddie is indeed scared about this all. It's his brain, after all, and anyone who knows anything about the Riddler knows that he prizes the mind above all. In my opinion, he isn't one to show more personal feelings out in the open, unless he's comfortable in a particular area. Hence, he isn't going to sit in front of someone he doesn't know and act scared, or show emotions like that. Anger, disdain, hate, joy; these are more the emotions that he would show.

Any person diagnosed with cancer will tell you that the worst thing about cancer is not the cancer itself. It's the way that people automatically start treating you differently. They start treating you like you're fragile, or like you're now someone that they don't know anything about at all. Even the oldest friends can act like that. It's frustrating, and usually what I find most of the people in my support group complain about. The sudden change in a person when you announce that you have cancer is immediate, and abrupt. You can be having a good time, and then make your announcement, and suddenly everyone is looking at you like you've just grown a horn out of the middle of you head, and sprouted wings. They don't know what to do or say. So they either start treating you like someone to be pitied, or are so uncertain, they just stop talking to you.

It's hard enough having cancer. Knowing that people suddenly find you too difficult to talk to makes it harder. I was really upset when people started treating me differently, and acting like I was a leper. Suddenly, no one could talk to me, because they didn't know what to say. I wasn't looking for pity, I wasn't looking for sympathy. I just wanted someone to talk to about things we had always talked about. As Eddie said, cancer doesn't define a person, its just part of who they are. It changes things, yes. But that doesn't mean that everything else about that person was before has disappeared. A new layer has been added, that's all.

A bit preachy there, but it's the truth.

While it's possible that Eddie managed all of this himself, I prefer to think that he had someone to help him. This is because Eddie himself tells Batman that he got to know his doctor, Thomas Elliot, a boyhood friend of Bruce Wayne, very well. In the time that Eddie was in Philadelphia, he became friends with the doctor, learned about the man's childhood, and his life. If there's one thing I've learned myself about cancer, it really does bring people together. Granted, at the same time it can tear people apart. But when people have little or nothing in common, if they find out that they have cancer in common, it opens doors of discussion. Since it did this for Eddie and Tommy, I have to think that Eddie was in the city for quite a while. Friendships aren't forged overnight. In that time, Eddie was probably growing weaker and weaker as the cancer ate away at him. So again, he needed someone to be there for him, 24/7.

There's been a lot of argument about why Tommy and Eddie would talk and become friends. After all, Tommy's just a neurologist and brain surgeon, right? True. However, because it's such a delicate organ, a patient requires that much more attention. Neurologists test a patient's motor skills to evaluate the function of the brain. With surgery, they also have to continue to monitor the healing process. Did they damage an area? If so, how bad is the damage? Can this be healed with therapy? There's a lot more to neurology and brain surgery than just talking to and operating on someone.
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