My Cancer Story

"You know you wouldn't be here right now if this was good news."

 "Yes."

 "We wouldn't have you running all over the city for these tests if this was nothing."

 "I know."

 "You seem like you have a good head on your shoulders and you're handling all this pretty well."

 "Yeah, I’m okay.  I just want to know…"

 "You have a tumor.  And it's most likely cancerous."

   *******

I wake up that morning with the same dull ache in my groin that I'd been feeling on and off for the last week.   A feeling any guy would recognize as the lingering after-effect of a quick “brush” of the nuts – the ghost of what had been intense pain.  I'm living with my girlfriend Niki and had mentioned to her several days prior that I thought I had pulled a muscle.  I climb into the shower still half asleep and, as I begin to shampoo my hair, I have what I can only describe as a flash back.  In it, I am sitting on my doctor’s examining table after a standard physical a year earlier.

 “Do you do self-exams on your testicles?”

 I remember having to suppress the urge to reply inappropriately.

 “Uh, not specifically.”

 “You need to start.  It’s important.  You’re reaching the age where you need to be checking yourself for anything abnormal.  Any bumps, a lump, a painful area.  Just do it once a month in the shower. Use soap, it makes it easier to feel the contour of the testicle.   It only takes a minute.”

 I had probably performed this self-exam about a month after the physical, but never since.  I start running two of my fingers over the area where the pain seems to be coming from.  A testicle isn't exactly perfectly smooth, and you're trying to feel something through a layer of pretty course skin, but so far I wasn’t feeling anything…

 Whoa.  What the fuck is that?

 I stand there, frozen, shampoo dripping into my eyes.  I must look like someone listening REALLY hard for a faint noise - half bent-over, head cocked, mouth open, intense look of concentration - except, upon closer inspection, I’ve got both hands wrapped around my balls.  Like a man reading Braille for the first time, I slowly, gently run my middle finger over an area near the back of my left testicle, trying to relocate what I think I just felt.  And then I feel it.  A bee-bee size lump. 

 It's not a lump!

 Still standing under the steaming water, I feel the uncomfortable prickle of a sweat breaking out on my body.  This is new, this notalump.  This was most definitely not here two weeks ago.  I think.  The ache seems to be emanating from this point.  Or is it?  It's hard to tell.  I can't localize it.  Maybe if I push a little on it OWOWOWOWOWFUCKFUCKFUCKsorrysorrysorryfuck!

 I'm flooded by that feeling you get when you miss the last step on a set of stairs - every nerve in your body firing at the same moment.  It's panic.  That's what that is.  But I don't panic.  I'm famous for not panicking.  Even when I find a painful

 Don’t!

 thing on one of my testicles.  I just deal with it.  Okay.  Fine.  I'll deal with it. 

I get out of the shower and dry off, but I'm drying myself down there like I've got an open wound.  I know there's something there and I've felt the pain it's ready to inflict if I'm not, careful.  I stand there, wrapped in a towel, trying to focus on what I should do.

call niki
no
call your folks
fuck no
call brian
for what
get on the internet
forget about it
see if it's there tomorrow
take an advil
decide later
go into work

This isn't working.  I'm off work today.  I have an interview in the afternoon, but that's it.  I know what I have to do and I realize this is a good day for it.  I call my doctor.

"Uh, hi.  I need to see Dr. Cohen today.  It's pretty urgent."

 "I’m sorry.  The next appointment is in three weeks."

 "I've found a

 Fuck it

 lump on my testicle."

 "Can you be here at eleven?"

 It's 10:15.