“I’m actually still playing Sons of Liberty (the sequel to MGS on the Playstation 2), and am stuck on the part where you have to defeat that army of huge serpentine robots called Rays.”
“Easy. Just use chaffs to scramble their radars, stay in the corners, and wait until their mouths open to attack – that’s their only weak spot, really.”
“Dude, thanks, Man!”
“You’re welcome. Let me know if you have any trouble. Oh, and if you’re struggling with the Rays, you might need some help with Solidus Snake, the final boss.”
“Don’t be trash talking me, Punk!”
We both beamed, having finally actually connected on something other than his inevitable mortality.
The next day I was in early, eager to share my experiences in this game. It occurred to me that our lives, despite being of similar age, were worlds apart. And yet gaming culture had given us a set of common experiences that we could relate with. There had to be something here. Instead of just pontificating about it, I wanted to ask him directly.
“Warren, what is it about gaming that, you know, just does it for you?” We had just finished a discourse about how to complete the rest of Sons of Liberty, and desperately afraid that we had come to the end of a common experience thread, I opted to find out a little more about what his motivations for playing were.
“Well, the easy answer is an escape, I think. But I think its more than that. I think it has to do with losing myself in another world. Being something different. You know, taking a football team to the Superbowl, leading armies to defeat the Goblin King, piloting a star cruiser – silly stuff, I know, but important to me. It also keeps me from being negative.”
“How so?”
“Well, when I’m playing I don’t have time to be worried about what my other friends are worried about – clothes, girls, cars – but mainly girls.”
“I got 99 problems . . .” I chimed in.
“Tell it, Playa.”
We both laughed at the somewhat lewd inside Jay-Z lyric, as both his mother and the nurse were around and we had pulled off some mad poetry.
“What if you could get on Xbox Live? What if you could game with other folks out there going through something similar?”
“That would be freakin’ sweet.”
“Agree . . . damn! Look, I’m late for rounds. By the way, your infection’s better according to the blood tests.”
“Uhh, thanks for all the info, Doctor”
“You’re welcome, Punk.”
The days came and went, and we continued to build upon our relationship as his infection was treated. Ultimately, with the blood cultures having remained negative the entire time he was there, we opted not to remove his dialysis access. During that time I spoke with the facilities director and managed to get permission to install an Xbox in his room, playing off the television. Unfortunately we couldn’t figure out a way to get access to the internet, meaning that XboxLive was out of the question. Still, I made sure that after rounds I would swing by and we’d have a quick race on Project Gotham Racing before I left for the day.
But the infection wasn’t the only issue he was working against. A repeat CT scan of his abdomen showed that his cancer had returned with a vengeance, almost doubling in size since the last round of chemotherapy. We had had to put the chemotherapy on hold because of this infection, and there was very little we could do to reverse its course. Despite being comfortable now, the oncologist downgraded Warren’s prognosis based on the aggressiveness of his disease. Oncologists are some of the most vivacious and optimistic people I know, and when even they can’t offer hope, things can look pretty bleak.
“You never told me what your favorite game was, Warren.”
“That’s easy – Final Fantasy.” Touche. Most hardcore gamers considered this particular series of games one of their favorites. It was known for its complex narrative, multiple branching storylines, and lengthy, lengthy gameplay experiences. The typical single-player experience could last anywhere from 40 to 80 hours. I recalled playing one of the games, Final Fantasy VII, over one of my med-school summers, and I still couldn’t finish it. And what a fusion of culture – the games epitomized J-culture, or Japanese entertainment / pop culture, with manga-inspired character art and mythology – all processed, synthesized, and analyzed by this young African-American man from downtown Baltimore.
“If you could be any character in the Final Fantasy universe, who or what would it be?”
“Bahamut.” The Dragon King – a supremely empathetic being who would from time to time be summoned by the adventuring party to lend assistance when the party was attacked by foes who were simply too big to face alone.
We discharged Warren to hospice care a few days later, and I remember being asked by Facilities to come and retrieve the Xbox that had been in his room. I remember standing in the empty room, thinking about the experiences we had shared over the past few short days. I thought about what he had said to me regarding shared experiences, about living in other worlds, about the benevolence of the Dragon King. It occurred to me that this concept of enabling patients with the chance to discover the same things that Warren had through online interactive worlds was simply too powerful to ignore. Wrapping the cables haphazardly around the gaming console, I noticed something lying on the floor. It was Warren’s discarded patient ID bracelet. Purple magic marker emblazoned his allergies and room number. To this day I still wear a purple gel band to remind me of this powerful young man who inspired me to put forward his legacy of bringing positive community gaming experiences to patients facing chronic illness. HOPEconnectsKIDS.org