So, I’m dying again. Well maybe it’s not quite that serious. I found a lump under my tongue on Wednesday. It doesn’t hurt. I made an appointment with my dentist for this afternoon ( yet another neighbor who went to India on a mission trip with Fred a couple of years ago and has since become a friend.) When I came into his office he asked what was up.
“I have a lump under my tongue and I want to make sure it’s not cancer.”
He looked taken aback.
“It’s kind of cool you can say that, most people are too afraid to say what they are scared of.”
I went on:
“OK here’s the thing, my dad died of cancer, I had a sister I never met who died of brain cancer at 2, and my brother who is just a couple of years older than me has stage IV colon cancer (I left out major coronary artery disease not wanting it to sound too incredible even if it was) and so I get a little freaked out by lumps.”
So he looked at it, measured it, gave me a prescription for penicillin and told me to come back in ten days. Until then I was not to worry about it. I was to put it out of my mind. Probably nothing at all.
By the time I got home fifteen minutes later I had already been through 3 rounds of radiation treatment, had lost 15 pounds (as luck would have it, the same 15 I have been trying to lose for the last 6 months since I quit nursing), was starting chemotherapy and praying my hair didn’t fall out, I had said goodbye to my children lovingly, and hoped Fred could make it on his own. Poor Uncle Ed looked so sad at the wake. I still cannot believe Billy didn’t fly in for the funeral- MAN some people!
When John Paul asked me what was for dinner I snapped out of it. (He actually asked me 3 times before I could formulate an answer.) What I wanted to say is “John-Paul can’t you see I am in the middle of chemo treatments?” but instead I said “I’ll throw together some leftovers honey.” When I told my friend Karen what I was thinking she said I should let her know how things turn out because she already has someone in mind for Fred, causing me to burst out laughing and move forward.
I know I’m not the only one out there that does this. I think most of us do. I can remember talking to my sister when she was pregnant with her first daughter and she very nonchalantly mentioned they were doing a follow-up mammogram. A few weeks later when she got the results and all was clear she burst into tears that almost leveled me. I was stunned not only by how worried she had been, but by how she kept the fear hidden for weeks, as if saying it out loud just might make it true.
Of course the fact that I am never sick, take relatively good care of my health, am active, don’t drink or smoke makes no difference. I know cancer’s has a non-discriminatory policy. It’s more about the “I told you so”. That unspoken rule in our society that we all know is true. You know the one that says ‘Humph, she is just doing too well lately; no one would ever expect her to get sick- she is way too happy and has much too good an attitude, if randomness is what we are all about- lets strike her!’
We all know you’re allowed to have a good life for a while, but it better not be too good or for too long or you are just pushing your luck. If the rest of the world is miserable and you’re not, it’s time for a heart attack, or the Big “C”, a flood, or insert your favorite terminal illness/natural disaster here:
Thankfully I am married to Captain No-Your-Not. It makes no difference whether I am genuinely suffering from some ailment, or just worrying about its potential lurking around the corner, Fred is always there to say “no-your-not.” Case closed. If I say “I hope it’s not cancer”, Fred tells me “it’s not”, Maybe its lupus? “No its not” “I think it’s a heart murmur”, “No-its-not” Most of the time he is right, so I just listen to what he says, ignore what bothers me, and it does go away.
I guess I am not really fighting cancer, or heart disease, or lupus- I’m just fighting me. I am still convinced I might make it out of this world alive. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But isn’t that what most of us humans suffer from? That mistaken notion we have forever. We don’t you know. Our number could come up any time. It’s good for me to remember that- even if my number isn’t coming up today. One day it will. But the threat of death does give us better eyes for this world. It helps us to see the things that matter more clearly. It helps us to recognize those we love, to behave as we ought, and to act as if everything matters.
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