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But when I later found the spot during a self-exam, my gynecologist sent me here.
Maybe I’m being paranoid, I think, when the radiologist tells me I need a diagnostic mammogram.
When she looks at those results, she says I need a biopsythe next day.
But once the doctor leaves, I realize she hasn’t told me what she has seen.
I chase her down, and she uses the wordsuspicious.Suspicious in what way I don’t think to ask.
But I wonder why she seems so uncomfortable.
I decided to become a psycho-oncologist during the memorial service for my friend Laura.
I regret that I never gave her the chance to talk openly.
I want to be braver with others, to let them say what they need to say.
I call my gynecologist when I get home.
“She already knows, honey,” the receptionist tells me.
“The radiologist just called.”
This woman has never called me honey.
Suddenly, I imagine myself in a thin blue hospital gown rather than my stiff white hospital coat.
Unlike most patients in blue gowns, though, I know what’s ahead.
My knowledge chills me.
Ironically, I’d been planning to return to work in a few months.
My plans were about to be delayed.
In the morning, my husband, Rob, and I go to see the breast surgeon.
His first words are a dictionary of cancer terms:ductal, infiltrating.
“Does this guy already think I have cancer?”
asks the unsteady voice in my head.
But I don’t say anything or I might cry.
There are cancer specialists who will order a psychiatric consult when a patient shows the slightest sign of distress.
“So, which patient cried today?”
someone wants to know.
These oncologists have learned many things, but apparently, comforting a cancer patient isn’t one of them.
They leave that to us.
The surgeon looks at the forms I filled out beforehand in the waiting room.
“You’re a psycho-oncologist?
You counsel cancer patients?”
But I am fast losing my identity as a doctor and on my way to becoming something else.
Denial usually doesn’t come easily to me, but no one has given me a diagnosis.
As long as no one sayscancer,I can feel safe.
It lets J., for instance, sing silly songs with his grandkids as they walk down the street.
he said once, irritated with my insistence on talking about reality.
When I brought up J.
At the end of my exam, the surgeon says something that stops me cold.
“I feel so bad for you…and you work with cancer patients, too.”
My case must be one of the worst he’s seen.
Sometimes, we psychiatry fellows played a game called Guess My Cancer.
We’d throw out our symptomsbone stiffness?
Or a bad day at the office.
When everything is a sign, nothing is, and it’s easier to believe you are healthy.
In other words, my ultrasound looked bad.
That’s why the radiologist was uncomfortable; she must have thought I had cancer.
So had the receptionist who’d called me honey.
All those nice folks being nice to the Cancer Patient, my new identity.
If she loves renovating houses, there will eventually be cabinets to replace again.
Isaac immediately demonstrates his newest trickarm farts.
For a moment, I forget my terror and just giggle.
Then I start to calculate: How long do I need to live to be sure Isaac remembers me?
As I think of all I stand to lose, the terror wells up.
“It helps to have information, even if it’s upsetting.”
He promises to tell me everything.
My before is meshing with my after.
A patient’s support connection is key to how well she copes.
My own support web link is kicking in.
When I met new patients, I always asked the story of their diagnosis.
The third surgeon begins by asking gently what I know before outlining my options.
But first comes the double mastectomy.
Besides, it’s tough to match a perky implant to the droopy D-cup of a 43-year-old.
I decide that having lopsided breasts would bother me more than a smaller matched set.
Many of my patients can’t replace their lost partssections of J. I thought my training would make me feel less helpless against things like cancer.
Now I know there’s no preparing.
As the Yiddish saying goes, you could’t control the wind.
But you canadjust your sails.
Nearly five years later, I no longer wonder when I’m going to die.
But I’m more aware of my fears, which makes them less intimidating.
Except now I’m armed with the knowledge that many things happen, some good, some terrible.
Meanwhile, we do what we are born to doadjust our sailsand live.
Photo Credit: Karen Pearson
