CANCER COMES UNEXPECTEDLY

This column originally appeared on Wicked Local.

My wife asked me if I would like to go to her doctor’s appointment with her.  Although I would be forced to take the morning off from work, it was something that was clearly important to her, so in a show of support I agreed to join her.   (My wife sometimes measures loyalty and commitment through a willingness to accompany her to medical appointments.)

She was scheduled to get a routine mammogram, a relatively simple procedure that would hopefully leave us the rest of the day to have lunch and possibly do some light-hearted shopping.   I had already poured through roughly ten pages of my book, Bill Pennington’s expose on late Yankee icon Billy Martin, by the time she reached out to me via text message.  “So they just did another mammogram x-ray and now I wait to talk to the radiologist.  They said I could have them bring you in for the results but it’s a little weird with all females back here with hospital gowns on.”  “Yes.  Agree,” I replied.   She quickly wrote back, “My heart is racing like 150 bpm.”  In an effort to help her keep calm I wrote back, “Take deep breaths.  Don’t worry.  Everything will be ok.” 

But my heart also started to race a bit more quickly.  It was now impossible for me to focus on my book.  It suddenly appeared that things were not going as routinely as I had originally thought.  After what became an agonizing passage of time, a nurse came to retrieve me leading me back to a very small office where my wife was seated across from Dr. James Snider.    Dr. Snider showed us images of the mammogram x-ray pointing out what he called tiny indicators of what could be breast cancer, “DCIS” specifically.  What was supposed to have been a routine doctor’s visit was now becoming something far more concerning.  Doctor Snider’s onslaught of help-inspired information was intended to concern us, comfort us, and encourage us to take immediate action.  “It is cancer but it is completely treatable.  The fact that you waited three years between mammograms really makes no difference here because this is such an early stage.  I need to tell you this because we live in a litigious society.  You need to get a biopsy to determine the next steps.”    Although the news that we had received was clearly bad, we left the office that morning as if we were under some hypnotic spell that prevented us from reacting to what we had just been told. 

Nearly two weeks crawled by before her scheduled biopsy.  I tried to comfort my wife by telling her that 80 percent of biopsies reveal no cancer at all (at least according to the internet).  Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be true in our case.  My wife was informed via telephone the next afternoon that the biopsy determined that she had cancer and (like a medically-themed Ebenezer Scrooge) was told that she would be contacted by three surgical specialists over the course of the next few days who would begin to formulate a plan of action. 

Now we are fully engulfed in a process that nobody ever wants to begin, completely aware that we are not the first to be given this news and, to state the unfortunate truth, will not be the last.  The doctors at Dana Farber have been both helpful and supportive as we anticipate what will hopefully be a successful surgery and the beginning of the end to what has already been a challenging situation. 

Like so many things in life, hearing a cancer diagnosis really puts things in perspective leaving you with the singular option of being optimistic. 

My young step-son asked me if I was excited about Christmas while I was driving him home from a friend’s house one night last week.  I truthfully responded that I was mostly concerned with his mother.  He truthfully responded in a most honest and innocent way, “She is a close second for me - next to Christmas.” 

Completely at ease that Christmas was still at the top of his concern list I allowed him to have to the last word, smiled, and continued the quiet drive home.  This originally appeared on Wicked Local.