A Series of Fortunate Events
July 7th : The Longest Day of My Life
"You don't understand what she was trying to tell you." - Mom
I got a call from Dr. Jane. "Hi Jonathan, I have your results and would like to see you at 2:30pm." I arrived at 2:35pm. Dr. Jane told me she won't have the complete blood report for another 30 minutes.
"Can your mom make it to this appointment?" say what? Why did she want my mom present? Why didn't she ask me to bring her over the phone? These were just a few of the thoughts that passed in the seconds before I responded, "I'm not sure. I'm hungry. I'll grab a bite and call her." I called the house. Dad answered. Mom's not there. "I think Dr. Jane wants her there because she may have more information about my youth and family history. This could be a genetic condition. I'll swing by the house afterward, dad." I called mom. She's at the grocery store. "It's near the Los Alamitos Race Tracks" I told her.
"Hi Mrs. Nord. You have a beautiful son. Follow me this way." She led us into her modest office where she began asking my mom for history of any genetic diseases in our family. Her dad had recently died of pancreatic cancer. My dad's father had died of prostate cancer.
"Jonathan told me you had noticed his eyes were yellow a while back. How long ago was this?"
"Oh…not that long ago, maybe four to six months."
Dr. Jane turned to me "did you notice your skin was yellow? How long has it been?" She asked with concern. "My whole life. I am Asian." I retorted. Dr. Jane was shocked. "I can't believe you said this in front of your mother," she said with a forced smile. "It's true," I replied "But my mom thinks I'm green." Dr. Jane gasped. I looked at my mom. She could only shake her head, smiling with her eyes closed.
Dr. Jane looked at the radiologist report. The tone became more serious. "This makes no sense. You're so young. This has got to be wrong, let me call the radiologist again. I'll be right back."
"This could be worse than I thought, mom." I shared more information about the CT procedure. Dr. Jane returned. "I just spoke to the radiologist and it appears that there are some masses in your liver that are of concern.” She handed my mom copies of the reports while saying "They could be benign, they could be malignant. I want to schedule you for a needle biopsy."
"So is it cancer?" I asked. She became uncomfortable. She swayed from side to side as she tried finding the right words in between long pauses. She then spit out medical rhetoric: masses, tumors, malignancy, benign, nodules, and other multisyllabic gibberish, not once mentioning the dreaded 'C' word.
"So…I don't have cancer," I tried stating as fact, but the inflection in my voice expected a confirmation. "We don't know. I can refer you to an oncologist. You can make an appointment just as a precaution. You can always cancel it later." My mom was attentively listening, not saying much. "The needle biopsy will give us more answers," Dr. Jane concluded.
She turned to my mom "I'm so sorry. He's so young. You have such a wonderful son. He's so adorable and funny. The nurse and I love Jonathan. Just before this, we were talking and asking ourselves why this always seems to happen to good people." I didn't understand that statement.
"So, what do you think?" I asked my mom on our way out.
"I think you don't understand what she was trying to tell you." She said.
"What do you mean?"
"She was trying to tell you that you have cancer. I was reading the reports. This is serious."
"Mom, you heard her. She said it could be benign and she won't know until we do a needle biopsy." I had also read the reports. All I deciphered from the pig Latin were 2 masses and multiple nodules. No C word anywhere. "You just weren't listening," she said, showing more frustration than concern "she was trying to tell you that you have cancer, but she can't because she's not an oncologist. That's why the oncologists' get paid the big bucks. This is serious, you could have months to live!"
"Mom! Calm down! You're freaking out...you're freaking ME out! This isn't what we need right now. Besides even if I do have cancer, we'll take care of it. It's not the end of the world."
"I've seen this, Jonathan. Uncle Ken, you know Ken, he died of liver cancer. Sheila had liver cancer and she tried to fight it and died. This is serious."
"So what if it is cancer?" I asked with increasing concern.
"It depends how much has affected your liver. Hepatocellular Carcinoma is a harsh cancer."
"Hepato what?"
" HCC. It's a liver cancer. The 5 year survival rate is low. You could have months...you could have a few years, we don't know."
"That's right, we don't know," I confirmed, in an attempt to reinforce my argument. Yet her demeanor had shoke me enough to ascertain the possibilily of cancer. "So what happens if I have HCC?" I asked, showing greater concern, but quickly followed "I could just get a liver transplant, or they can remove it with chemo or some treatment." I was still confident that these "months left to live" lines were for 'old' people with cancer.
"Well…Sheila tried to fight it with chemo or some other treatment, but it took away her quality of life. The question you'll have to ask is what kind of quality of life do you want. Sometimes, it just takes away time and doesn't fix the problem," she said more calmly. We were toning down to normal discussion levels. "I hope it's not HCC then," I said in an effort to reassure myself. "I still think were jumping the gun. You're way out in left field. You heard Dr. Jane. It could be benign. Why are jumping ship?"
"I'm just bracing myself for the worse case scenario."
This made sense. It isn't always about me. "So, should we tell Daddy?" I was hoping her answer would ease this tough situation. "What do you have to do?" She asked. I should go check up on my stores, I thought. "Ok. I'll meet you at the house."
That afternoon, I became one of 'those' drivers. My eyes focused more on the reports than on the road. These medical reports are divided into two sections. The first is an objective evaluation of the findings. The second is a subjective analysis of the radiologist's interpretation of the findings. I meticulously combed through the findings: no mention of HCC. I flipped the page. There it is! Midway through the impression section was written: Suggestive of diffuse hepatocellular carcinoma. My mom was right…again.
July 7th, 2009. So much for lucky sevens.
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