Fish Gotta Swim...

February 29, 2008

Between lunchtime and happy hour, the situation went from daunting to dire.

Over quiche and salad at the Caribou Café, I had been joking that I needed to find a boyfriend before my hair falls out. Now, apparently, I may have to secure a sperm donor by noon on Tuesday.

Maybe I should back up.

Things started going to hell six weeks ago, when a doctor in the U.S. Virgin Islands told me I was turning into a fish.

Okay, that’s not exactly what he said. It was something more on the lines of “that lump in your neck might be a branchial cleft cyst which is essentially residual gill-like tissue left over from the embryonic days before your lungs were fully formed,” but I stopped listening after “gill.” Three years after trading in my “real job” in Philadelphia for a waitressing gig in the islands, followed by a year of adventures on the high seas, was my body finally morphing into something saltwater-based, like a mermaid? What a great ending for my book! Even better than crossing the Atlantic in a 30-foot sailboat.

Promising to see a specialist when I returned to the States in a few days, I walked out of the medical office into an 80-degree-and-sunny, postcard-perfect tropical scene. Spirits boosted by two of Whitey’s Bloody Marys at JJ’s bar by the ferry dock, I bought a new bikini (spending more than I did on the doctor) then went sailing with my island friend Celia in her new boat. My biggest worry that balmy afternoon was that I had colored my hair a few shades too dark, Deep Moonlight being the closest thing to blonde I could find in the drugstore in the West Indies. Celia assured me I looked great as a brunette. If, in fact, I did turn into a fish, under her mooring in St. John’s Chocolate Hole would be a nice place to live.

The doctor, unfortunately, was wrong about the gills. Turns out it was just cancer. Not the kind that kills you (at least not 70-95 percent of the time, depending on which statistics you’re reading), just the kind that land locks you and makes you sick for awhile and mostly is a colossal pain in the ass, ruining your plans to work on a yacht in the Caribbean and keep traveling to exotic places.

This, by the way, is how you find out:

You make an appointment at a prestigious teaching hospital in a major East Coast city. You see a couple of stone-faced receptionists, then a medical technician, then a nurse, then a student who looks about 14, then a physician’s assistant. Then, when you are out in the hallway, yelling into your cell phone that apparently there ARE NO actual DOCTORS in this prestigious institution on this particular day, someone makes a call and then hands you the name and address of the ear, nose and throat specialist in the next building. Six hours later, the chairman of the ENT department looks at your neck for 90 seconds, a couple of pathologists stick your lump with a whole bunch of needles, then the top dog comes back in and cheerfully announces, “Good news! It looks like lymphoma!”

This is a little confusing, because your surgeon friend, Dr. Lisa, told you good news would be “a reactive lymph node,” which sounds kind of the same, but isn’t exactly what you think you just heard from this specialist guy who has now launched into this hazy string of words that includes “surgery,” “chemo,” “radiation,” and “not a death sentence.”

“Makes you glad you didn’t get the ‘bad news,’” a friend would later remark.

Because the specialist never says the word “cancer,” I am still confused when I walk out of his office into the gray, bitterly cold, Philadelphia winter afternoon. Tears freezing on my cheeks, I dial Dr. Lisa who, in her take-charge voice, confirms what I think I heard, agrees that perhaps “good news” is not the best way to describe my preliminary diagnosis and assures me that what I have is very treatable.

“Do NOT go home and Google anything,” she orders. “Go shoe shopping. I’ll call you later.”

“You’ll be fine,” echoes a co-worker. “This is just a speed bump in your life. And in the end, it might be one of those things that make you re-evaluate what’s really important.”

Was he kidding? Wasn’t anybody paying attention? I had already quit a high profile, well-paying job, sold my car, sublet my condo, put my belongings in storage and completely upended my hard-earned Stable Life in search of What’s Really Important. Re-evaluate life? Check! Already crossed off the list! There must be better candidates for forced introspection.

“Besides, I feel great!” I protest to my city friend Ellen over green tea martinis (those are healthy, right?) later that night. “How can there be anything wrong with me?”

“You don’t have cancer, honey,” replies Ellen. “What you need is a week at a spa. Give me that doctor’s phone number. He needs to send you to Canyon Ranch. And your insurance should pay for it.”

Back at lunch at the café, my dining companion asks if I read about Smith magazine’s six-word memoir contest. The winner, Not Quite What I Was Planning, could apply to me, but we try to think of something original. We settle on: Bring It On, Baby. What’s Next?

I leave laughing, but walking home in the new, high-heeled, black leather boots purchased on diagnosis day, my heart is sinking. Not quite what I was planning? How about: “How fucked up is this?” I don’t need six words. “This sucks.” Two words suffice. “Not fair.” I am quite the wordsmith. Is this what people mean when they say, “This will give you plenty to write about”? My old material was better.

“Chemotherapy will make you sterile,” the radiation expert told me last week. “Do you want information on egg harvesting before starting treatment?”

Really, you shouldn’t get cancer until you get a husband. I love my mother, but the fact that I’m 42 and still have to put her down as my emergency contact person is, frankly, depressing. On top of everything else, I have to revisit this baby thing? Does anybody believe now would be a good time to undergo the hormone therapy needed to boost egg production?

The first meltdown is thorough.

“Pour a glass of wine!” Celia demands, her voice crackling over the phone 1500 miles away.

“I don’t have anything here,” I despair, “except the bottle of Patrón I bought for my friend’s tequila party tonight.”

“Open it! They won’t care if you have your share a little early.”

I break the green seal, uncork the bottle, and fill a shot glass to the brim. It is warm going down.

“Okay, I’ve never done shots alone before,” I say.

“So what?” says Celia. “Besides, you’re not alone. I’m drinking too.”

One hour and a couple of shots later, I am rallying. Before hanging up, we toast:

“I’d rather be Patrónal than hormonal!” (Six words.)

The medical oncologist told me if I can get drunk without puking, then chemo probably won’t make me sick. She appeared impressed when I assured her I could hold my liquor in 20-foot seas. It seems the responsible thing to do, keeping up my tolerance while stuck on land. Especially since it’s this so-called solid ground that feels a little shaky.