The Lotto "You don't want to be that rare case." - Uncle Howie
As I prepared schedules and game plans for the upcoming week, I eagerly awaited the phone call.I mustered great self control, restraining myself from dialing the doctor’s office.I received the call at 2:00 PM.I was expecting Dr. Jane.Her receptionist greeted me instead “Hi Jonathan.How are you?” she asked, continuing without a pause, “We received your pathology report and Dr. Jane would like to see you tomorrow.Can you bring your Dad?”What was it with Dr. Jane and my family members? I asked myself.
“My Dad? I can ask him.Why do you want me to bring my dad?”
‘Well, it’s always good to have a family member for support.”Why not my mom?Had Dr. Jane felt uncomfortable during our last visit?I didn’t like the way this was headed.“Actually, my parents are out of town,” I just remembered they had planned a getaway trip to San Francisco to meet with friends and family for a little R&R.“Do you have any other family members?Brothers, Sisters?”Sarah, the eldest, was eight months pregnant.I wouldn’t want to put an extra burden on her; neither did I want to put a burden on the youngest.“Do I need to bring a family member?I have an Aunt and Uncle I could ask.”
“Sure, that’s fine.Dr. Jane wants to meet with you tomorrow at 2:00pm.”
Some of this information was incongruent to me.On one hand, I assumed the news was important enough to demand the presence of a close family member.On the other, the news wasn’t important enough to be delivered immediately.
I got on the phone with my mom.I expressed my concern and asked for uncle Howie’s phone number.Howard has his own local Dental practice.He would be familiar with some of the terms and medical advice I was about to receive. I called my uncle and set up a time to meet for dinner so I could bring up to speed.A half hour before our meeting time, I received another phone call.
“Hello, Jonathan?”It was Dr. Gee. “I just received the results from the pathologists.I’ll be here late.Can you swing by the office tonight?”
“I’ll be right there.”
Instead of the Sea Dock Fish House, I met my uncle to see the doc.I handed him a manila folder with my accumulated reports.“This should get you up to speed.I have a problem with my liver.They’ve found a mass and we’re getting the biopsy results,” I whispered to him in the waiting room.Before he could open the envelope, I was called in.
For the short time we waited in the examination room, he combed through my blood tests from the end of June.As I pointed to my elevated liver functions, Dr. Gee interrupted us. The parties introduced and Dr. Gee went straight to the meat.
“OK, we received the results from Stanford.This took longer than usual.Now it’s not Hepatocellular Carcinoma.”A sigh of relief left my body.This was good.“Is it malignant?” I asked, jumping the gun.“Well, the pathologists had a hard time determining exactly what type of condition this was.I believe it went through five different set of hands.One pathologist finally signed his name next to the diagnosis five others signed off in concurrence. The final diagnosis is…” he shuffled through reports in his folder.“I wrote it down somewhere…” he mumbled still sorting through the papers.“OK.You have Epithelioid Hanan…Uhh..Hemangioendothelioma.Yeah, there we go: Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma.”He handed me the pathology report.The top of the page had the condition written down three times, the first two were crossed out.They must have been misspelled. I handed it to my uncle.
“I’ve never heard of it before.Now, I did a little bit of research on it and it is a rare form of cancer.It is a blood vessel cancer, that’s why the name is Hema, which means blood, and endothelioma, which is the outer layer of blood vessels.So it is a vascular cancer.It’s very rare, only 200 cases per year in the United States.The odds of winning the lotto are better than getting this.”I wasn’t sure how to react to that statement.I wish I would have known this yesterday.Maybe I could have rubbed some luck onto Jacks’ coat.The only lotto I felt I had won was the devil’s. I looked at my uncle.He was still reading the report.Dr. Gee continued “now the good thing about his type of cancer is it’s a less aggressive type.It’s slow growing, similar to prostate cancer.”
“What do you mean by slow growing?”I asked trying to get a better time reference.“Well, usually when we diagnose a patient with prostate cancer, they’re around 60.We say it’s slow growing because it would take 15 to 20 years before he would die from the cancer.The odds of him dying from something other are a lot higher.”I didn’t understand this statement either.I was 28.So that meant this could take me before the age of 50…40?I couldn’t ask that question.I didn’t want to know the answer.
Howie looked up “You look at his blood reports though and you would think everything is normal.Other than the liver tests, this blood report shows no signs of any disease.”
“That’s true.I spoke to your oncologist.You did make an appointment with the oncologist I referred you, uhh…Dr. Satay?”
“yes.I have an appointment with him on Thursday.”
“Good.Good.I gave him your diagnosis and he also had never heard of it.I’m sure he’ll look into it and have more answers for you.”
“I guess it’s better than HCC” I said,
“This cancer is less aggressive than a Carcinoma,” replied Dr. Gee.
“Man, but you know what they say in the medical profession,” Howie replied, “you don’t want to be that ‘rare’ case.”
“So what should I do in the mean time as far as eating and exercise?”
“Keep exercising, but don’t overdo it.And go out and eat!Eat whatever you want.I mean eat healthy and stay away from alcohol, but enjoy yourself,” he smiled, reassuring me like a grandfather.“Here,” he handed me a thick packet, “I made copies of all your blood tests and reports.You’ll be needing them.”
We finished our conversation.My Aunt and Uncle met Dawn and I later that night for a nice dinner at the Fish House.After two gruesome weeks, I was finally able to eat a real meal.It relished the taste.My Aunt decided to join me at the appointment I originally scheduled with Dr. Jane the next morning.