I had not prepared for such resistance and blunt pessimism, but perhaps tact and sympathy were only smoke screens when one"s prospects were a.s.sumed to be dim. The two emotionally soothing elements surely did nothing to right a physical wrong; maybe she honestly felt that she was doing me a favor.
My thoughts, nevertheless, went on the rampage after the startling conversation, and in no shape to make further calls, I gladly accepted my Dad"s offer to call Mayo Clinic for me. He immediately phoned to schedule some tests and a consultation with my former oncologist; only then did my frustration wane. Unconfirmed suspicions were bad enough without the additional terror of being denied a chance to search for the truth.
My new plans for the coming weekend made various cancellations a necessity. Apart from school, I had accepted an in-store promotional for cosmetics through the modeling agency and also intended to visit a friend at college, where Halloween festivities were reportedly quite arresting. Re-routing my plans was a disappointment, but I had to ease my tormented mind; excitement seemed to be raining down on me in buckets, and added a different aspect to the expression "when it rains, it pours."
The sense of urgency which had initially wrought such havoc upon me was squelched by the upcoming clinic appointments, and the week progressed without further turmoil on my behalf. When Thursday arrived Dad and I packed ourselves into my car and rolled out of the driveway toward the unknown answers that we sought to find.
For the first time, Dad and I were traveling to Rochester on our own.
Because I was having a routine set of tests for a symptom that, as yet, possessed no form or definition, Mom was going to remain at home and teach her kindergarten cla.s.ses. I had no objection to this, since the entire trip was based solely on the paranoia which sprouted after my questionable discovery, and frankly I was beginning to feel rather foolish for even mentioning it, let alone pursuing my suspicions.
It could be anything. . . or nothing at all.
"It"s not stupid if it puts your mind at ease," Dad consoled.
I felt better when he said that. The last thing I wanted to be was a hypochondriac.
The envelope of appointment cards held nothing that sounded catastrophic. There were cards labeled "blood tests" and "chest X-ray"
as usual, and one card that read "cat scan," I stared at the last card with latent skepticism. The name itself held no malice; with luck, the test would prove to be painless as well.
The cat scan, I later discovered, was another means of taking an X-ray, and with this knowledge, felt sure that I would live to tell about it.
As it was my final test, however, I could not help but wonder if it was worse than the rest; I had noticed from previous experience that the more detestable prodding, poking and outright sampling of one"s body was reserved for last, which was appropriate, perhaps, since a main event was always the biggest fight.
I sat in my dressing room, musing over the test"s infinite possibilities until I was retrieved by one of the generically-attired clinicians and led through radiation wonderland to a room housing a huge device. A circular opening in the machine appeared to devour the examination table on which I was instructed to lay. This was, indeed, something new.
Once inside the room, the door closed and the technicians scattered.
I watched from my spot on the rigid table as some people milled about the machine and others remained attentive from behind what resembled a sportscaster"s window. One young woman began to prepare my arm for an injection, so I smiled and seized the opportunity to talk. I always felt sorry for the staff at clinics; daily they received undeserved abuse from bitter or frightened patients, as well as a significant amount of mute apathy. I wanted to disprove the possible thought that all patients had the personality of cold oatmeal. . .and I wanted to know just what the test would entail.
"Does that hurt?" I motioned my eyes at the machine"s jowl, which stood agape slightly above my body. The woman shook her head and told me to remain very still as the final adjustments were made.
"Is this all there is to it?" I asked, referring this time to the injection.
"Sometimes a patient has to have two types of injections, but you probably won"t..." she said. Her pleasant tone eased my mind and instilled trust, much like a friend would have done.
Suddenly everyone disappeared to the observation window and the lights dimmed. A series of instructions were broadcast from the window and then the machine came to life, clicking off pictures of my insides as I held my breath for dictated intervals.
When the lights flashed on, the woman came to my side again. She told me it would take a few minutes to know whether or not my X-rays were satisfactory, so we ventured into a trivial conversation until the results were determined. Activity resumed shortly, signaling that a verdict was at hand, so the nurse departed, only to return with an apologetic look on her face and equipment for an IV in her hand.
"I"m afraid you"re going to need more X-rays," she said. "The doctor needs more contrast."
Bad news is a strange concept. It is something one considers but seldom prepares for; even life"s most inevitable pain and indignities are not taken personally if they remain hidden from view. Everyone knows that he will age, but until the strand of gray or sun-kissed wrinkle appears, aging itself can be ignored.
"The doctor needs more contrast." The statement entered my mind and closed a door. Up to that moment I did not know if anything was wrong.
Now I knew, and like a 30-year-old who found his first gray hair, was not surprised. I did not live in fear of losing my health and happiness; when one deals with each day, he needs not prepare. . .
he needs only adjust.
I returned my attention to the needle that was about to be inserted into my arm. "Does that stuff have any effects?" I asked. She smiled at me and hesitantly said, "Well, we"re told not to mention this, but sometimes patients say they can taste it and those who have had chemotherapy are psychologically affected by it and want to vomit."
I knew what that meant, and holding back a grimace of displeasure, said that I had experienced the effect she described.
"Thanks for telling me," I continued. "I hate not knowing what to expect." If I was antic.i.p.ating the worst, the test"s actual pain and discomfort did not seem so bad. With the needle in place, the nurse turned to me and said, "I hate to have to stick needles into nice patients like you."
When the solution began to drip into my system, I felt my stomach perform an involuntary flip-flop. The hateful taste and sensation had not changed and I had to wage an intensely conscious battle against a powerful urge to gag and rid myself of the distasteful invader. After receiving a compliment such as the one just given to me, however, vomiting was unthinkable.
Once again I found myself beneath the scanning X-rays, wondering if the second search would uncover any answers. If so, I would be enlightened when we met with Dr. E.
The only information I was able to extract from the consultation was that I had an enlarged liver.
"An enlarged liver?" I spoke the words with a hint of amus.e.m.e.nt. For me this was a great curiosity. Liver was something most people refused to eat; beyond that, it was of little importance.
Apparently there was much I did not know about the body"s dire necessity of the liver, but the doctor said nothing and accepted my light-hearted reaction without comment since he was unable to provide further information anyway. Testing had proven inadequate; beyond the enlargement, he remained mute regarding the possible interpretations of the X-rays. Perhaps he did not wish to instill premature fear by offering stab-in-the-dark diagnoses.
It was clear to me that I had no option but pursuit; a liver biopsy, scheduled after the consultation, would hopefully solve the mystery.
I was nervous. My anxiety could not be shaken, for the thought of a biopsy engendered memories of the bone marrow test, a test which I vowed never to take again. What terror had I willfully agreed to undergo this time?
It was a relief to hear my name called on the loud speaker; the time I"d spent in the waiting room was of no benefit to my peace of mind.
I could think of nothing else but unbridled pain, and mulling over such thoughts tended to have few positive effects.
After disrobing and donning a hospital gown, I was led into a waiting room used by other patients and soon began a conversation with an older woman who also had an enlarged liver. Over the fact that she was enlarged I did not argue, however, I could not resist asking myself how much of her enlargement actually had to do with her liver. Whether her mistake was due to self-deceit or a lack of awareness did not matter; concern and uncertainty were two elements we shared, and we wished each other luck as a nurse ushered her from the room.
I spent a brief while surveying the floor before I was called. A nurse directed me to a room and instructed me to lay down on a hard examining table, whereupon I was left in darkness for two hours before a doctor arrived. Meanwhile my state of mind deteriorated rapidly as I listened to the sounds emanating from the surrounding rooms. Most were only voices trailing off into the maze of corridors and finally disappearing behind various doors of anonymity. However, with my mind housing its unarrested and nameless fears of the forth-coming biopsy, other sounds were transformed into horrendous tortures, the likes of which I would surely undergo. One such fanciful flight of imagination was set off by the unimpeded verbalizations of an old man whose room was across the hall from my own. Since my door was propped open, I had noticed him sitting in his wheelchair and muttering complaints or idly sucking his gums. Eventually the door closed and his tests began, leaving me to interpret the activity behind the door through his vocalizations.
There were garbled grumblings, which I had expected, but then groans replaced words and I began to worry. They were awful. They were the cries of horror shows and nightmares, scaling a full octave and attaining a tonal quality which rivaled professional sound effects.
I was impressed; so much, in fact, that my stomach had managed to tie itself into a perfect knot by the time the doctor arrived. I appraised the old man"s throaty outbursts as the sound track to a liver biopsy.
Luckily I was wrong. Whatever were his trials, whether real or imagined, they prepared me for optimum punishment, to which I was never exposed. Although I was horrified in my solitude and misinformation, perhaps my final opinion of the test"s severity was buffered by the old man"s wailings.
After my long wait, the nurse who had initially shown me to my room entered, and finding me lying in the darkness, flicked on the lights with a round of apologies. She explained the unreasonable delay was due to an inability to obtain the CAT SCAN X-rays. Generally Mayo"s system worked quite effectively. Considering the large scale of the facility, I was amazed that things ran smoothly at all.
The X-rays and doctor arrived in unison and the test commenced after a brief series of questions on my part. Naturally, I desired to know if it would be painful and was informed that it "could be." I was then given a local anesthetic and braced myself, recalling that the pain killer did little during the bone marrow test.
"Did that hurt?" the doctor asked.
"What do you mean?" I countered.
"I"ve taken the biopsy," he returned.
"What?" I was astounded. "I didn"t feel anything!" The doctor instantaneously became my best friend.
I remained on the table to await the results of the biopsy which had been whisked away to the laboratory. Since the doctor had to judge his targeted area through the X-rays, there was no guarantee that he would hit an affected portion of the liver; if the lab reported finding normal tissues, the doctor would have to try his luck once more.
As my luck would have it, another biopsy had to be taken. If that one failed to produce answers, my condition would have to be determined through alternate means; cutting into the liver, as in a biopsy, created the risk of hemorrhage, and therefore limited the number that could be performed at one time to two biopsies.
The doctor posted my X-rays on the light box and studied them intently.
I wondered what information he drew from the strange transparencies; the X-rays told me nothing at all. If I had not known it was my liver, the mottled shape would have been no more than a nameless abstraction.
"Are livers supposed to have spots?" I queried.
The doctor shuffled his feet for a few seconds, then admitted they did not. I guess it was a stupid question, especially since the elusive spots were the intended targets in the test, but I had to know all of the available facts. The truth was my comfort and my ally; it was the cure for fear born of ignorance.
The second biopsy was also determined normal. After the long day my knowledge was still limited to the fact that my liver was enlarged and spotted; it was information, but it did not satisfy. To Dad the normal tissues found in the biopsies were good news; i.e., if biopsies in two different areas were clear, I could not be seriously afflicted. To me, however, the findings punctuated the necessity for more tests and promised to prolong the unhappy state of emotions which accompanied a dearth of solid facts. Thus, as I laid on a hospital bed waiting as instructed for four hours to protect myself from internal bleeding, and having worried excessively and learned relatively little from the former expenditure, I could not look upon the day without thinking of the expression "much ado about nothing."