I’m also wondering about this unfamiliar calm that has settled over me in the last several days—ever since the doctor on the phone spoke the word cancer. At the same time as I have watched the terror build in John’s eyes, I have felt somehow relieved. It has happened, I keep thinking. The terrible thing. This is what the terrible thing feels like. Somehow, a lovely space has opened up inside my chest, a little, deep pool in the thickest woods.
An earlier version of me—even me from a week ago—is already googling my way to a PhD on breast cancer death rates. Over the past decade I have earned my Google PhD in at least a hundred catastrophic topics—usually fates that could befall my poor children: chance of death by undetected rabies bite, chance of death by green-tinged diarrhea, chance of death by large ear lobes, chance of death due to eating playground mulch, chance of death due to an unnatural passion for ceiling fans and kitty cats.
I remember once reading that ovarian cancer very often went undetected because patients did not have any obvious symptoms early on. I also have no obvious symptoms, I was able to deduce, so clearly I have ovarian cancer.
John shakes his head: “You’re amazingly crazy,” he says. “You know—for not being crazy.” Since I was a little girl, I have planned an escape route whenever I sleep in a bed that isn’t my own. John doesn’t worry about anything until the rooms are full of smoke and someone is shaking him and flames are licking under the door: Okay fine, maybe we should call 911.
Darkest confession: One time, alone with the baby for too many hours—the day already dark, John still at the office—I knowingly let nine-month-old Freddy repeatedly suck on the power cord to my laptop—he giggled and whined simultaneously each time it zapped his tongue—so that I could have a spare second to scour the Internet for something that would tell me the likelihood of a healthy, verbally precocious nine-month-old developing autism.
A couple years back, when a therapist helped me realize through a series of exercises that the only thing that would satisfy me on the Internet was a website that explicitly said: “Freddy and Benny are going to be just fine. So are you and John,” I laughed out loud at myself. But it didn’t really stop me from seeing disaster at every corner, or checking from time to time to make sure the magical website did not in fact exist.
“You’re holding on so tight,” that therapist told me. “You think you will be obliterated if anything bad ever happens.”
Now, lying in my bed, obliteration feels like peace, like drifting toward sleep. This is the terrible thing.
Meanwhile, John and the kids go to the park, to Target, to the library. When they get home, John comes upstairs quietly and sits down on the end of the bed. “I need to talk to you,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
“I really wish I didn’t have to say this, so try not to freak out.”
“Okay,” I say again.
“I think Freddy has developed diabetes.” John has been a type-one diabetic for nearly twenty years. They said it’s not genetic. . . .
“Okay.” I absolutely cannot think of one other thing to say.
“I noticed he was drinking a lot from the water fountain at the library, and it reminded me of when I was diagnosed. So I tested his blood sugar on my meter. It’s off the charts.”
“Okay.”
“There’s really nothing else it could be,” he says.
With hardly any more words, I put my clothes on, and we pack up the car and call the pediatrician and head to the hospital. Freddy’s eyes are scared and exhausted.
“It completely sucks,” I say, pulling him against me as we walk out to the car. “But trust me: You’re going to survive.”
On the way to the hospital I get a call that my MRI results have come in. We stop by the Breast Center, part of the same complex. The woman at reception hands me the test results and a large pink tote bag. “Complimentary!” she says.
One small spot, the printout confirms. I can breathe again and then I can’t as we walk onto the children’s ward, the pink tote over my shoulder.
*
Freddy is a great sport at the hospital, but he hates it when they put in the IV, which takes a number of sticks in his tiny hand, and he’s not shy about letting the nurses know.
“I’m surprised you’re okay with doing something so painful to a kid,” he tries, incensed by the multiple attempts. And: “Are you sure you have actually put in an IV before?” And: “Isn’t there some other patient you should be helping right now?”
The saintly nurse rolls her eyes, and John heads out to get Freddy some chicken wings and broth from his favorite Chinese restaurant—something with low carbohydrates that won’t further elevate his blood sugar. While he’s gone I call my mom.
“I know it’s going to sound like I’m making this up,” I say.
First I tell her the news from my MRI, then Freddy’s diagnosis. They want to keep us here for three to four days—to get his blood sugar under control, stabilize his kidneys, teach us how to give him shots—even though John is already a pro.
Benny isn’t allowed to stay on the ward because it’s flu season, so John takes him home after dinner. We talk on the phone later that night.
“I really didn’t want to tell you,” John says. “In fact, I considered taking him straight to the hospital and telling you I’d decided to take the kids on an impromptu trip. It just seemed really important not to let you find out.”
Freddy’s asleep at last. I’m lying nearby on the foldout chair, lights off in the hospital room—just the flash of the heart monitor, sending out a steady code into the night like a lighthouse: okay for now, okay for now, okay for now.
“I’m so glad it was you who was on parent patrol,” I say. “I think it would have sailed past me. I kind of feel like I’ve had a lobotomy.”
“Oh yeah, I wasn’t going to tell you that part either, but I had them take care of that as well,” he says. “It seemed for the best.”
6. Nonplussed
The Queen of Triple Negative Breast Cancer: that’s the doctor I have the great fortune of being squeezed in to see so she can determine how to treat this aggressive-seeming, hormone-negative tumor, the clinic coordinator at Duke Cancer Center tells me.
John and I take a selfie in the exam room while we wait.
“This is what two completely terrified people who are trying to act like they’ve got it all under control look like,” I say, showing it to him.
“How many people do you think are going to feel you up today?” he says.
The first appointment is at 9:20 a.m., and we don’t leave the clinic until 6:00 p.m. Dr. Cavanaugh is smart like a switchblade and wears knee-high black boots with her white coat. She looks completely together. She might be my polar opposite.