I planned my funeral the Christmas I was 27.
Earlier that month I had found a lump in my breast, and in the two weeks it took to have a
mammogram, wait for the results to come back and then get an appointment with the doctor, I
assumed the worst. Convinced I had cancer, and anticipating my certain death, I planned out - in my
head - my eventual demise. I envisioned my whole family participating in the Mass, which would be
held at St. Anne’s Parish in our hometown of Hull, Massachusetts, and concelebrated by several
of our family’s priestly friends. Mom and Dad would do the readings, my sisters Paula and
Brigid would play the piano and flute during the service, and at the cemetery my brother Justin would
play taps on his trumpet. I was still pondering the choice of a eulogist - one of my other five siblings?
my longtime friends John or Steve? - when I finally got in to see the doctor. He stuck a needle in the
lump in my left breast, pronounced it a cyst, drained out the fluid and sent me on my way. I called
off the embalmers and canceled the clerics.
Fifteen Decembers later I found another lump. My annual physical and mammogram were
scheduled in early January, and I saw no point in having the Christmas 1996 lump looked at any
sooner.
"It's nothing to worry about,� my doctor told me when I saw her the following month. “I
can feel that it’s a cyst. It’s not connected to anything and it moves around when I palpate it.
� The mammogram didn’t indicate anything remotely suspicious, and the ultrasound showed
only a small, liquid-filled bubble. She sent me to the surgeon, Dr. Friedman, who aspirated the cyst.
It disappeared and so did I, heading off to California for a conference and a vacation. I returned two
weeks later and so did the cyst.
Dr. Friedman, suggested having it removed so it wouldn’t worry me. He explained where heâ
€™d make the incision, so that there wouldn’t be much of a scar. Not that anyone other than
medical personnel had been exploring that area of late, but I did want to keep my assets in good
form. We scheduled the surgery for March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, an auspicious date for
someone who, while not actually born in the land of saints and scholars, was conceived there. I took
this date as a good omen.
My mother came up the night before so she could accompany me to the hospital. We arrived in
Pre-Op by 7:00 a.m. and they wheeled me into the operating room by eight. I was given a local
anesthesia which was supposed to keep me just below the surface of consciousness. I told them I
preferred to be well below the surface of consciousness since I didn’t want to wake up during
surgery as a colleague of mine had a few weeks earlier. In the middle of his operation he regained
consciousness and launched into a lecture on the Portuguese mercantile system of the 1840's, which
kept the entire surgical team spellbound for a few moments until the anesthesiologist gave him another
dose and he fell back asleep. I regained consciousness at one point, and while totally disoriented and
unable to lecture as he had done, I could hear the surgical team discussing skiing. I tried to tell them
to stop talking and to pay attention to their work, but all I could manage were a few mumbles after
which I dozed off again.
I woke up at 9 a.m. in the recovery room feeling a little groggy but otherwise fine. My mother was
sitting by my side. Pretty soon she got up to socialize and went across the room to speak with a
woman she seemed to know, who then came over to my bedside. She patted my hand and told me
how pleased she was to hear that everything had gone well. When Mom came back I asked who she
was.
“That’s Anne, says Mom. “Her sister Emily just had surgery this morning and we had
a nice chat out in the waiting room.�
Oh great, I thought. It was bad enough that most of my relatives were worried about my
unremarkable little surgery. Now complete strangers were getting my medical history.
We got through the next hour without further visits from strangers, and by 10 o’clock we
were calling a cab. I was home by 11, ice pack affixed to my bosom, knocking back Percocet,
sipping tea and calling the office to check in. Three days later I went back to the doctor to have him
check the incision.
“Are you back at work already?� he asked when he saw the pile of work I carried along to
keep myself busy whenever I had medical appointments. I joked with him and complemented him on
his fine work as he checked the neat little incision, which he said was healing well. Then he sat on a
stool across the room from the examining table.
“Well, the pathology report came back,� he told me.
“Oh? That was quick,� I said as I climbed off the table and gathered up my papers. We
hadn’t expected it to be completed for at least a week and here it was back in four days.
“The cyst was just a cyst,� he told me.
“Right, that’s what we expected,� I said. He seemed to be stating the obvious. We all
knew it was just a cyst. In fact, that phrase had been repeated so often I had set it to music “You
must remember this, a cyst is just a cyst.�
“But they found some cancer in the tissue around the cyst,� he added.
My first thought was that they must have looked at someone else’s slides. It had never occurred
to me that it might be cancer. And what about all those assurances that this was nothing to worry
about?
I stared at the doctor. He looked worried. Now I was too.