Last summer, I found a lump and had a needle biopsy, and it was diagnosed as a benign breast condition for which my doctor prescribed non-surgical treatment. This treatment did nothing for my lump, and so in November I met with Breast Oncology Specialist “Dr. H.”
Dr. H looked at my imaging, read the pathology report, felt my lump and said: “Nope. This pathologist is getting a phone call.” She was clearly unimpressed by his work, so I asked her if I should leave him a bad Yelp review. You know, the kind that begins with: “If I could give negative stars, I would.” She said “sure” and, also, that the lump needed to come out immediately.
I don’t care for general anesthesia. There are only four people on the planet I’m okay being unconscious around and none of them are surgeons, unfortunately. But Dr. H said she could snatch out my tumor while I was fully conscious, and so I made an appointment for the following week.
That night, I thought about the tumor and also about the multiple lesions that’d been recently discovered on my liver. I summoned my mother (a former hospice nurse) and sister (a current hospice nurse) and had them feel my lymph nodes for the hundredth time. They weren’t enlarged. Still, I thought it a good idea to express my wishes in the event of a worst-case, end-stage diagnosis. And that was to forego chemo and any other unnecessary, painful treatment. Instead, I wanted a big party where I would say goodbye to everyone while no one could tell yet I was sick. And then I expected my mother and sister to help me die comfortably. I felt like people did this kind of thing all the time.
Much to my surprise, the both of them flat-out refused. They were appalled at my ignorance and used the occasion to try and educate me on the tenets of hospice. I was reminded of that scene in “Ocean’s Eleven” when that casino owner learns his vault is being robbed and so he tells his guy to “make the call” and I assumed he had an elite team of badasses that would take care of things, but the call was just to 911. WTF? This guy had to rely on the police just like everyone else?
I was similarly displeased with how my mother and sister — whom I’d always considered to be both professional angels of mercy and the two people closest to me — were going to hypothetically handle a hypothetical late-stage diagnosis. “This is bullshit,” I lamented. “I’d do it for you.” They were unmoved. “I’d do it for you,” I said again. Nothing.
Well, I mused aloud, I could always disguise myself as a dog and call one of those in-home pet euthanasia services and tell them I needed someone to come put down a Mastiff. My mother and sister concurred that I had neither the presence nor the temperament of a Mastiff but could possibly pull off a high-strung Weimaraner. Yet, Weimaraners don’t weigh more than 90 pounds, so they agreed it’d be best if I told the service I needed enough euthanasia drugs for “an anxious, knock-kneed, 140-pound Great Dane.” And that was the end of that conversation.
The following week, Dr. H injected my breast with lidocaine-epinephrine and cut into me. All the while, we chatted in that easy way I’ve heard other women and their hairdressers chat. I watched her pull the tumor out of me, and it was like witnessing a birth. I named my tumor Rio, like the song.
After she stitched me up, Dr. H placed Rio gently in my hand, and I was suddenly overcome with the desire to stop-motion animate it. I had the stop-motion equipment. I even had the sand for Rio to dance on. Dr. H didn’t seem the least bit shocked at my request to keep Rio. She just shrugged and said: “Well, I’m not gonna fight you for it. But don’t you wanna know?” Then she left the room and returned holding a specimen cup containing some other lump of tissue she had removed from a woman that day. It wasn’t going to the pathology lab. It was benign and going in the medical waste bin, she said.
This tumor wasn’t as big as Rio, but it had its charms. It was like a delicate piece of cooked lobster — innocuously smooth and pink on the outside and pearly white where it had been partially bisected. I turned the cup around in my hand and admired it for a few moments. Then I handed it back to Dr. H, thanked her, gave Rio a parting glance and walked out the door.
In the end, my tumor and the spots on my liver all turned out to be benign. And so now I’m left to wonder what became of Rio. Is it floating in formaldehyde? Has it been incinerated? Did someone from the lab take it home to do God knows what with it? My sister, who makes claymation characters, says she’ll one day recreate Rio. But I have my doubts. As I found out, it’s hard to get her to do even the simplest things these days, such as administering a lethal dose of morphine after a boss ass party.