So the other day I was at the tit n' toot doc getting an annual check-up when she discovered a lump on my back.
I don't know what she was doing back there. I wanted to shout, "Wrong end! Wrong end!" Maybe she isn't a very good tit n toot doctor or maybe she's just far more thorough than others I've been to. In any case, because she had the authority to check me for venereal disease, not to mention the bravery to stick her face where she does all day every day for a living, I naturally took her word for it that this lump on my back was something I should get checked out by a doctor familiar with the other end of my body. Also I think it's just human nature that if you are wearing a garment made of paper that is specifically designed NOT to cover you up, your vulnerability makes you believe anything said by anyone who comes through the door, even if they are just another patient suffering from dementia who wandered into your exam room by mistake.
I of course immediately assumed I had cancer and started sweating so profusely through my paper gown that it began to disentegrate. It is a well-known Jewish trait to always assume it is cancer, even if there is no lump present. Even if you are perfectly healthy, chances are you have cancer. And if you don't have cancer, you better start worrying about it now, because it will happen any day. But by no means should you discuss cancer in a normal tone of voice. The word should always be stage-whispered ominously lest God should hear you and get any ideas.
The other reason I was pretty sure it was cancer is that lately I've had the audacity to be really, really happy. And everyone (Jewish) knows that you should NEVER allow yourself to be too happy and if you are ever unfortunate enough to become so you should do your best to look on the dark side, and blow out of proportion any little thing that might possibly be wrong with your life. Because being happy is the surest way for God or the fates or whoever is in charge to reach down a giant hand from the heavens, smack you across the face and declare sharply, "HEY! Don't go getting used to this!" Therefore it is best never to show happiness for longer than a few seconds and to immediately counter-act it with gross amounts of exagerated negativity: "My Lonnie just got into Harvard Law School! Of course this means we're going to have to hock the china that has been in the family for seven thousand generations to pay for such a thing. Through the desert, my ancestors carried this china only for it to end up in some shmaltzy second-hand store so my son the fancy lawyer can go to Harvard. Why do these things always happen to ME?"
I was on the phone with my general practioner within moments of leaving my gyno's office. He couldn't see me until the end of the week, though, which left four days for me to develop an ulcer worrying about my tumor. For the next several days it was all I could think about. I kept digging around in my tumor, reaching back between my shoulder blades like a double-jointed circus performer, hoping maybe to deflate it or encourage it to just dissolve back into my body.
"It's just like Love Story," I wailed tragically to my husband who was not humoring me AT ALL. "Where Jenny goes to the doctor because she can't get pregnant and they find out she has LEUKEMIA and she COLLAPSES in Central Park and then DIES." I clutched at Tom's lapels dramatically. "Promise me after I die you will write about this! You could make millions! An entire generation of little girls will be named Karen!"
Tom shrugged me off. "First, you didn't go to the doctor because you can't get pregnant. Second, you're not going to die. Not now anyway. It's not a tumor."
"It's not a tumor, it's not a tumor," I mimicked angrily. How could he not be sympathetic? How could he not be sobbing at the thought of losing his beautiful, young wife at the very peak of our lives together? "You sound like Arnold Shwartzenegger."
He just rolled his eyes. "Claiming you have cancer when you don't is an insult to people who really DO have cancer," he stated authoritatively. He knew he had just sent me on an all-expenses-paid guilt trip. It doesn't take much. I don't just take guilt trips, I take extended around-the-world guilt tours. I pack my little bag full of remorses and set off for months at a time. But lucky for me I can worry and feel guilty at the same time. It's a talent.
On Friday I arrived early to my doctor's office and sat bouncing my legs agitatedly while I waited. I intended to play it very cool when I saw him, to enter into this whole situation with a tragic bravery ala the little girl in the movie Six Weeks who wanted to be a ballerina and instead died at the age of 13 right after meeting Dudley Moore.
My studied poise lasted about thirty seconds into the exam before I blurted, "I'm not going to die am I? I mean, ha ha, it's not like I've picked out the music for my funeral or anything" (that was a lie - I had, in fact, already chosen "10,000 Miles" by Mary Carpenter, a song that reduced me to tears within the first two opening chords) "but I thought I should probably get it checked out just to, you know, humor my gynocologist. Ha ha."
After palpating the spot for half a second he told me the most miraculous thing I have ever heard: "You have a sxcoipeurfew tumor."
The only word I heard clearly was "tumor." I had a tumor! I had an actual, real-live tumor. Does this mean nothing bad could ever happen to me again? No! No, get rid of that thought immediately before the giant hand appears!
The doctor then went on to explain it was "likely" a benign and very common tumor which required no action other than to monitor it for changes, but then he had to go and ruin our warm and fuzzy conversation by saying the three worst words you can ever hear from a doctor: "It's probably nothing."
PROBABLY nothing. Well there's a ball I can really run with. My imagination can work overtime with that little phrase. I'll be up nights thinking what it PROBABLY isn't until I've visited the specialist he recommended to get a definitive answer one way or the other.
However, the odds do seem to be that I am likely not to die soon. Not of this, anyway. But that doesn't mean I may not get hit by a bus the second I walk out of the doctor's office.
One must never let one's guard down. Even if one does have a tumor.
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