Sometime during the summer of 1998, when Celeste was 16, a golf-ball sized lump appeared on her clavicle. One day, a friend jokingly told her to quit messing around with it (she’s a little obsessive-compulsive; no idea who she gets that from) because it was going to turn into cancer. My daughter’s sense of humor is warped enough that even when she was finally diagnosed in December that year, she remembered the comment and has never let that friend live it down.
The pediatrician, upon seeing the lump, referred us to a surgeon who took a needle biopsy of the swollen lymph node and pronounced it benign. He said that it was probably cat-scratch fever, that, in fact, if it wasn’t, he’d eat his hat… and that the node should reduce in size over several weeks. By late November, it was still enlarged and we returned for a follow-up. The surgeon said that he could remove the gland, but it wasn’t necessary and besides, she didn’t want a scar that would show when she wore bathing suits and strapless prom gowns, did she? Dude! This was the wrong thing to say to my daughter. Yes, as a matter of fact she’d take that scar, with a side of feminism, please. She might have flipped him off. The biopsy showed cancer and the doctor ate his hat.
Actually, I don’t think he had a hat and if he did, I’m positive he didn’t eat it. Coward! Instead, he had his receptionist call me at home and tell me that my daughter had cancer. I stupidly (blindly, naively?) asked her what I was supposed do. When she told me to call an oncologist, I had to ask what that was. Maybe I was in shock? (Okay, you have no idea how much I wanted to type that whole paragraph in ALL CAPS with a million exclamation marks punctuated with question marks.)
When I went to her bedroom to tell Celeste, who was still home from school recovering from the surgery, she met me at the doorway. I cried and held her and said the “C” word and swore that if I could, I would make it so that I was the one with the diagnosis. She hugged me and said, “Mom, that’s stupid; it’s not possible, and you always tell me that I can make a situation a good thing or a bad thing, that it’s my choice. I’m going to make this a good thing.”
I found a pediatric oncologist who had made his career on the study and treatment of Hodgkin’s. We (Celeste's entourage parents, step-parents, grandparents, boyfriends, cats) met with him for the first time on the 4th of December. One of the first things he said was, “If you’re going to get cancer, this is the kind to get.” I pondered this for a moment, and then I punched him in the nuts. Afterwards, I asked politely when "we" could get started on treatment. He suggested that because it was a slow moving cancer that we could wait until after the holidays. Then Celeste head-butted him and said no, we'll take that opening on the 11th and sure, we'd be happy to be in his guinea pig in a clinical trial for a “kinder, gentler” treatment. Could she get a note so she’d get extra credit in AP Bio?
____________________________
Okay, I’m going to pause here: I’m thinking that I could devote several months to fun cancer stories, and it might actually be cathartic for me. Or else it would cause me to spin in circles, crying and laughing simultaneously, which could be amusing. Theoretically, I’m writing this for myself, but I’m assuming someone out there is reading this too. Does anyone have a strong opinion about where I should go with this? (Teaser: One story involves stealing radioactive material from a major teaching hospital. Another conjures images of a laboratory-crucifixion. There's boobs and day-glo orange pee, too.)
P.S. I started to write this in the form of the five small graces, with numbers and everything, but this post (and actually, the last) wouldn’t be contained that way. Pretend this is Highlights Magazine and see if you can find the five hidden graces. Don’t make me number them!
No comments:
Post a Comment