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Call It Instinct, Call It Fear
On a crisp autumn afternoon, Monday, November 17, 1997, I was admitted to New York City's Mount Sinai Medical Center and prepped for surgery. The dagger-like pain to my gut on the lower right side had left me gasping. Doctors thought it was appendicitis.En route to my room, I asked a direct question, something I've done for years as a reporter and journalist: "Is there any chance it's cancer?"
Call it instinct. Call it fear. Or maybe resignation, since I had lost almost everyone close to me to cancer, including Larry, my husband, who died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in '92. He was part of every single thing I cared about. I still wasn't over his death. (You're never really over it.)
The surgeon replied, "I don't think what you have is cancer. Very small chance. It looks like appendicitis."
The rest of that day is a blur. I know I got to my hospital room around 5 p.m., that I called my sister Lois for my toothbrush and that I contacted Andy, my middle stepson, to pass the word to family and friends that I was going under the knife but that they shouldn't worry. Next thing I remember, I was waking up in intensive care at 5:30 a.m. -- the next day, Tuesday. My gut felt taut, and I was flat on my back, with tubes snaking everywhere.
I asked one of the ICU nurses, "Was it appendicitis?"
"I'll get the resident," she replied.
First clue: When they don't answer your questions, the news isn't good.
A young resident arrived momentarily. When I asked him the same question, he looked away and said, "I wasn't there. I'm just the resident. You'll have to talk to the surgeon."
Uh-oh. Answers, I wanted answers.
I've always thrived on answers in my professional life. But in this immobile state, pinned down by medical equipment, I had no leverage.
I decided to take matters into my own hands. I picked up a phone and called Lois. "They won't tell me anything," I said to my sister. "What happened?"
Pause. "How do you feel?"
"Okay. But you have to tell me."
"You were in surgery for about five hours," she said. "It went fine." My sister is not a very good liar.
"What was it?" I said.
She sighed. "I'm not supposed to talk to you until the surgeon gets there. He'll give you the rundown."
"Lois," I said.
"Okay," she said. "It's colon cancer. But he thinks they got it all and that you'll be just fine."
Silence.
Colon cancer had never appeared on my radar screen. I knew about lymphoma and leukemia, about ovarian cancer and breast cancer. But I didn't know that colorectal cancer, which affects the colon or rectum, was the second most common cancer killer in the United States. Didn't know that women were susceptible and that you could get it before you were 50 (I was 55 when diagnosed). All of which may have explained my initial reaction. I didn't feel shocked or panicked, didn't see my life flash before my eyes. Maybe I'd used up my terror allotment when Larry first got sick in 1986.
I latched onto Lois's last words -- "You'll be just fine" -- and went from there. I started learning everything I could about this assault on my life.
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