The Cancer Club
Writing by treason on Tuesday, 27 of March , 2007 at 10:25 am
T and I just met up with a friend of ours - someone we’d nicknamed “Hurricane Andrew” because every time he blows into town all hell breaks loose. He’s a young guy, born the same year that “Waterloo” was high on the Billboard charts. The three of us had worked together before he took a job that moved him from his native Nuevo Mexico to Taiwan; so he’s been bouncing around Asia for several years, but appeared back here last week for a friend’s wedding. We met up for a few beers the night before he was scheduled to fly back to the former Formosa.
The first thing I noticed as he sat down next to me was a large dark red mark on his neck. It looked as if someone had mistaken him for an ashtray and put a cigar out on him. An awkward moment: Is it polite to mention that you’ve noticed something disturbing? I decided to wait until he brought it up.
“You’re probably wondering if someone put a cigar out on my neck, huh?”
The curse of the Irish: our fair friend - and I mean fair - had some “marks” on his pale Irish skin. They were removed, analyzed, and were determined cancerous.
“Gotta get one of those yellow wristbands - I’m a @#$%^&* cancer survivor!”
There is just something about that word “cancer” that stops a person dead in his tracks. Back in 1999, just days before Y2K, I finally went in for a mammogram. I’d been putting it off, but I was growing weary of hearing my doctors tell me that since I was no spring chicken - “you realize you’re 40!” - I decided I really needed to go have it done, just to get them off my back. Just before the holiday, I went into the clinic first thing in the morning, headed off to work, and didn’t think any more about it. When I got home that evening I checked phone messages and there was one from my doctor.
“We’ve scheduled surgery for you Monday morning.”
Turns out that my doctor saw something unusual, and since I’d never had pictures of my breasts taken before, there was no way to tell if this was an abnormality. Better safe than sorry, they said: we’re going to cut it out and take a gander.
Two of the most devastatingly handsome - and funny - young surgeons introduced themselves to me on Monday morning, then began fondling my breasts. Between these two jokers and T, I was in tears - from laughing - by the time I was asked to start counting backwards into unconsciousness. When I woke up, I was told that something the size of a walnut had been removed and would be analyzed. The good news: whatever it was, it was benign.
After that, I started scheduling regular mammograms. But then it became difficult to schedule them around work. And when the non-profit - which continued to take money out of our paychecks - stopped paying for our insurance, I resigned in disgust and haven’t had any health insurance since. I actually can’t remember the last time I went in for an exam.
Stupid, I know, but it happens. T’s mother was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and required treatment. Laura Ingraham, too. And, of course, Elizabeth Edwards is in the news because her cancer has returned and is in her bones. And now Tony Snow’s cancer has reappeared and is in his liver.
John McCain and Rudy Giuliani will be scrutinized now: will their cancers boomerang on them, too? I watched some of the coverage today when news broke that Tony Snow would be taking time off. The mood was generally optimistic: There’s been so much progress…it can change your life for the better…you learn so much about yourself and about what’s really important…as long as you’ve got family and friends who support you, you can get through it…it’s not a death sentence anymore.
“I just want to let everyone know having cancer hasn’t made me a better person.”
That, from Cathy Seipp — brilliant, beautiful, talented, much loved, and a benefactor of animals - who lost her battle with the disease earlier this week.
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