Dating : The size of a small orange

I hope that you don’t have cancer, but if I had a nickel I would say without question, even without the PET scan, that you do. The words ricochet across my skull. How did we get here? At the hospital. On the 44th Floor. In the Thoracic Surgery Department. It’s a Friday and only a few weeks into the new year. For the first time, I went to a party on New Year’s Eve. I sang and danced with my friends. We made stupid jokes about the roaring twenties and took ridiculous pictures in a makeshift photo booth. There was a palpable feeling of excitement; an energy in the air. When you walked outside, the cold winter breeze didn’t cut you. It felt like an embrace of an old friend, carrying you. I spent most of the party trying to not think about the strange symptoms my mother had been exhibiting. Her shortness of breath. Her extreme fatigue. Even the simplest of pleasures seemed to be too much for her. Her primary care physician booked numerous appointments for various tests but as soon as one was booked it had to be rescheduled until appointments set up for early December got pushed to just a few days into the new year. By that time, it was clear that something was awry. Her local doctors kept saying it was probably an infection, not cancer. Though the test results published on her medical portal indicated possible carcinoma. When she finally had an MRI of her torso, the positioning of her body was a bit too high and it caught a tumor the size of a small orange at the back of her skull. Those results were enough to encourage her to venture down to the city to see a specialist about whether or not it had to be removed quickly. But then the doctor is asking if she is always this tired and looking at other medical records. Something doesn’t seem quite right. Then scans of other body parts are sent to the thoracic department. Another appointment. Another test to be scheduled. Some sort of needle going into the lung to grab a tissue sample. It sounds bloody and slightly terrifying. My aunt finally says that it is time to make an appointment at a hospital that specializes in cancer. If my mother has cancer, she should go to the best possible hospital for treatment in the city.

The whole family is on edge the morning we go to the hospital. Only two other patients are in the waiting area. So far, everyone has been friendly and kind, that is until the woman who handles the paperwork arrives. She tells us we should come in immediately and then once we walk into the room section tells us the room isn’t ready for us. We get plunked in a room where the computer doesn’t work so the surgical assistant has to take notes on her phone. Nurses keep stopping in and interrupting. There is no flow to tell the assistant all of the moving pieces. And then the surgeon arrives. He has a haughty air and is wearing expensive leather shoes. He waltzes in talking about life expectancy and fails to listen to anything my mother has to say to explain how she has been feeling. And that’s when he says those words. That he’d bet money on my mother having cancer. That she needs to have a PET scan immediately. That this is serious and we need to move quickly. I realize that I have been leaking tears for the entirety of the conversation. Far from helpful. This isn’t my body. This isn’t my diagnosis. But I can see her shock and horror as reality sets in. Everything about this is ugly. The doctor. What he says. How he says it. Nothing will be the same.

We are moved to another building to do a PET scan for confirmation. I call my best friend who is only a thirty-minute subway ride away. She immediately takes off work and offers to come sit with me in the waiting room. It’s too depressing so I ask her if we can meet at a café or coffee shop nearby. Somewhere close but doesn’t feel antiseptic. When I see her, she has cupcakes and a bouquet. The stark contrast to the rest of my day is overwhelming. The flowers are too beautiful. The cupcakes are too thoughtful. We sit quietly together, sitting our tea until the café closes. After that, we walk. The PET scan is running over and I can’t stop fidgeting in the waiting room. Two men catcall me and tell me that I’m beautiful and how nice it is to see me with flowers. Normally I would ignore them but something about this feels particularly despicable. When they ask me what’s the occasion, I tell them: My mother was just diagnosed with severe lung cancer. The shock on their faces is priceless. Their eyes turn down. They are ashamed and don’t know what to say. One quietly croaks sorry. The other slowly walks away. What else is there to say?

And we wait. We wait until Monday morning to get the PET scan results. Instead of a lung tissue biopsy, they want to take a lymph node. It lit up in her right lung, her lymph nodes, and her liver. Hours pass and then it is confirmed. Yes, she has cancer. It is seriously life-threatening. Brain surgery must wait. She needs to start chemotherapy immediately.

Nothing can ever prepare you for finding out that your mother is sick and dying of cancer. There isn’t a fucking manual you can open that tells you exactly what to do with various scenarios. You feel angry. You feel sad. You feel powerless. You try to function. You try to talk about normal, “non-cancer” things but somehow the big “c-word” drifts into the conversation. You find out very quickly who your true friends are; the ones who show up and take phone calls at all hours of the day. The ones who make jokes and act like it is no big deal. “I mean hey, the statistics aren’t so bad!” And the ones who say “Call me whenever you need to talk” and don’t do shit. They don’t call you. They don’t text. You never hear from them again.

You may think about booking an appointment in a break room. The thought doesn’t immediately occur to you until you declare to your friend that, “you need to break some shit,” and she suggests looking up possible locations to go and smash some plates. You may decide that you don’t want to get dressed. What’s the point? Sweats will do. You can’t talk about it as a family. Everyone has a coping mechanism. Talk about it. Don’t talk about it. Maybe if it isn’t addressed it isn’t happening. No, it’s here and it’s real. Her hair falls out. She stops eating because nothing tastes good. She stops drinking because it makes her ill. Soon every day of chemo is agony; she doesn’t even have a good day or two between doses.