I told everyone, of course. Mostly it was fine. I just… wasn’t quite fully tethered to earth, to my body. My sister arrived later in the evening and we went on a short walk and talked by the lake. Her eyes filled with tears and her face crumpled in this very specific way of hers, chin first. I reminded her that when I was a smoker, she’d once threatened me: “If you ever get cancer, I won’t help!” and she laughed through her tears and embraced me, “I was lyyyying”.
It was, if such a place could exist, just where I’d want to be- and was lucky to be– if I had to weirdly find out from a freaked out doctor’s assistant that I have cancer. We had a great weekend and I felt loved and supported and relatively optimistic.
On Monday, I had the day off, thank god. I hadn’t been sure if I’d be staying in Chicago on Sunday night but after all this I just wanted to be home. I called my doctor’s office because I wanted the real news and still hadn’t gotten it from her. I called them twice, actually. Left messages several hours apart. Finally, I was like- this is ridiculous. I often love to do everything as easily as possible. But this – calling and waiting, this is not for when you’re trying to get your doctor to give you news that she must know you’ve gotten… come on. My opinion of her was falling every time we interacted and I hate to say that but it’s true. I drive to the office because it’s really close to my house. I go in, I have a bag with me with my kindle (I’m ready to post up) and I’m basically like, “hi, I need to talk to the doctor and I’ve called a couple times today and I’m just going to wait until she has time but I need to talk to her today.” I don’t totally remember (just a touch o’ the dissociation, see) but maybe I even threw the word cancer in there, like “I need to talk to her cuz apparently I have cancer” or something to that effect. The two women in the front desk looked at each other, someone said “what’s your name?” and one said, “Spier- Naomi Spier. I gave her your messages,” she said, looking at me. I was like, yup. And I sat down and I got out my Kindle.
I got called back to a exam room so fast it was… what’s a word that means terrible and darkly hilarious and weird? Some of this stuff makes me laugh at the absurdity of all of this. Like, what is even happening. Is this what happens to everyone as they get older, or is this like a new thing special for me, this everything is supremely fucked–ness of it all? Anyway, I’m back in the exam room and the doctor comes in. We’ve met maybe like 4 times total, but I’ve only lived back in Indy for a year and a half. My last doc I had for like 10+ years retired when I was in Illinois. I loved her so much and I’m always looking for a doctor like that. Who I feel like cares about me as a person. Duh.
So she comes in and yes, I have cancer. She tells me that she had no idea, that the radiology place sent her communication that they had told me. She shows me some papers that are my results. She’s gesturing at the bottom, where it says something like results given to both (my doctor’s office) and patient. She’s like, see? See?! I thought you knew!
I’m like, oh shit! That’s fucked up! The person I talked to at the radiology place sounded shocked when I told her how it had all gone down- and maybe she was from the place that had told my doctor that I had known! I felt kind of bad for talking shit about the doc with my girlfriends and tried to be understanding. Cuz yeah. People fuck up. I leave the place, I text the girlfriend group “the radiology place told the doctor that I already knew.” Everyone’s like, ohhh that sucks. I’m like, yeah, sure does.
Who else but me would get this joke of a diagnosis process? For someone else it might have been crushing but for me it almost felt motivating. Like, “hey fuckface!” It was calling me out. “You’re going to get slapped across the face with this cold piece of roast beef and there’s nothing you can do about it.” It was a rude way to learn and it gave me something to focus my attention on, the absurdity of gestures broadly.