⇦Previous Event
Tuesday morning I was taken for a technetium bone scan to look for metastases. There was no recovery needed for this exam, so the rest of the day I was left more or less to myself to wander the pediatric ward. The regimen of enemas and laxatives I was on, however, required me to stay close to my room.
Tuesday morning a vascular surgeon unexpectedly came up to my room to talk privately with my mother.
“Mrs. Chapman,” he began in an impersonal, too-matter-of-fact tone, not to my mother’s liking, “the radiology exams your son had yesterday indicate that the tumor has spread out of his kidney. Consequently the surgery will be more involved and I’ll be assisting Dr. Middleton.”
My mother was dumbfounded. The news was getting progressively worse. Probably a bladder infection, Dr. Sundwall had said. No, not a bladder infection, it turned out, but probably cysts. Not cysts, but a solid mass, she had learned at the University Hospital. And now not only solid, but spreading, the step beyond solid when the tumor breaks apart and spreads through the body.
Questions raced through her mind: “They’re going to remove his kidney. What else are they going to have to remove? A leg? Both his legs?” But when she tried to verbalize a question, it came out sounding so dumb that the surgeon looked annoyed and told her before departing, “Don’t get all worked up, Mrs. Chapman. We’ll deal with whatever we find in there.”
“His tumor has spread! Metastasis. Metastasized. Cancer starts at one location, but its when it spreads—spreads to your lungs, your liver, your bones—that’s when it kills you,” my mother’s thoughts raced. She was on the verge of getting quite upset, but managed to keep her emotions in check. Among other things such as her religious faith, she credits the personal touch of Dr. Sundwall, who kept talking with her, trying to get her to think of “cancer” as being something other than a death sentence, sharing with her how when he had been an LDS missionary in Ireland he had seen many people living with cancers in a way unthought of in the United States.
Later that afternoon, I laid in my bed relaxing, my mind being occupied by my mother’s small talk, when Dr. Middleton came into the room, pulled the curtain behind him to separate us from my roommate, and sat next to me on the bed.
“Brian, tomorrow we’re going to remove your right kidney. I want you to rest up today and relax.” Patting me on the thigh, Dr. Middleton said a few things to my mother and then left.
I slumped into my bed, alarmed at this news. I have two kidneys; they are deep inside me; Dr. Middleton told me that they are important. What’s going to happen when they remove the kidney? Am I going to die while they are trying to remove it? Why do I need to have my kidney removed?
After Dr. Middleton left, I sat in my bed, refusing to talk to my mother at one moment, snapping at her the next. I didn’t want to go to the playroom. I pouted and brooded, afraid of having surgery, afraid of having a kidney removed.
Later in the afternoon, a resident working with Dr. Sundwall came to see me. Sensing how upset I was, he sat down next to me on the bed. “Brian, what’s up?” I wouldn’t answer him. He looked over to my mother for help.
“He’s been upset since Dr. Middleton told him they were going to remove his kidney tomorrow,” my mother informed him.
“I see,” he paused for a moment, formulating his strategy. “Well, Brian, I can see why you’re upset. I’d be upset and scared, too. But you know what? I think you’re going to be okay. Did you know that when I was a kid like you I had surgery?”
This question piqued my interest. I looked up at him, my eyes asking for more information.
“I had my appendix removed. They cut my stomach open, just like they’re going to do to you tomorrow, and took my appendix out. Then they sewed me up, and see I’m fine now. I think that’s just how its going to be for you.” Hearing this assurance from a surgical survivor broke me free from my fear, and I was able to relax for the rest of the day.
But my parents could not relax as easily, however. They knew more than I did. They knew there was a malignancy of some form in my right kidney, and that the cancer seemed to have spread from my kidney. They knew cancer was deadly, but they couldn’t quantify how deadly. Fear and ignorance defined their emotions. But from Dr. Middleton’s reticence, they inferred that he thought my condition to be dire.