I slouched on the cold, wax paper covered, leather bed that was in the exam room. I got the shivers each time I would shift my weight and the bare skin on my thigh would touch a new, cold section of the plastic leather. My short, 11 year old legs were dangling off the side. They were suspended a couple feet off the ground and swinging off beat from one another hitting the side of the dark veneered drawers that were below the bed. The paper underneath would make a crinkling noise like I was annoying it each time I made the smallest movement. My hospital gown was gaping in the back where the two shoe lace thin ties left football shape holes allowing wisps of a chilly breeze to sting my back and cause my body to break into goose bumps. I felt so vulnerable sitting there with nothing on underneath the thin, white, cotton, covering. I was nervously waiting for the oncologist (cancer specialist) to walk in the room. I was waiting for something I didn’t know was coming. This was my first cancer examination, and this is how I spent my eleventh birthday.
The petite and young looking nurse led us to my exam room with a smile on her face and skip in her step. It was the first patient room on the right. The wax paper covered bed was placed at an angle on the right side of the wall. The sink and counter were next to it with the doctor’s gloves and other instruments arranged nicely on the table top like an OCD man had just attacked the whole counter. Some smug looking locked cabinets held their place above the sink. The miniature tile was a sallow yellow, and even though I knew it had been cleaned and sterilized, the color reminded me of a public restroom. The walls were boring hospital beige and decorated with only a couple posters that illustrated the proper way to do a self breast examination. I was horrified that those would be hung up where people could see them! Some pamphlets were displayed just below on a table that was pressed up against the main wall. The pamphlets were all about different types of cancer and showed pictures of discolored and rotting flesh. My stomach got tied into a scout worthy knot and I had to look away. Subconsciously I knew that I couldn’t catch what they had just by touching their ink dyed pages, but I was still grossed out.
The very kind nurse smiled at me, handed me my hospital gown, told me to get undressed to the skin, and put it on. My dad left the room and my mom stayed behind to help me. She benevolently folded my clothes and tied the ties in the back of my revealing gown. I was humiliated. I had never been in such a vulnerable situation. I was shaking uncontrollably from the lack of insulation and fear of what the doctor would have to do.
Dr. Noyes trumpeted into the room with a nurse trailing behind him holding a clipboard and writing down notes. He was an older man with white hair, some defined wrinkles on his face, and smile lines around his eyes. He spoke with confidence and ease and I instantly liked my doctor. He briefly explained how the skin examination would go down. He had to check every visible part of my epidermis to make sure I didn’t have any other weird marks.
I laid my whole body down on the heat sucking bed. His cold latex covered hands tickled when they got to my stomach; they scared me when he had to touch me in other places. I held my mom’s hand and closed my eyes. He pushed in parts to checking for swelling of the lymph nodes (cells that help strain bacteria from the blood and become swollen when infected or cancerous). He narrated and commented as he went; trying to explain everything he was doing and why. I could tell he was trying to calm me down, but it wasn’t working. I could feel the tears want to come out. They were pushing against my tear ducts like a crowd of people racing to escape a burning building, but I would not cry in front of this man. I didn’t want him to see me lose any more of my pride.
When it was over, the doctor stepped out of the room with his tag along nurse trailing behind him so that I could get dressed. I thought that the worst part was over, but I was wrong.
Once I was dressed, Dr. Noyes stepped back into room with my dad and the small room suddenly became very crowded. He wasted no time.
“The sample that we got from your mole was an interesting one. We sent it to NY to be tested and the results came back Melanoma positive. You have skin cancer.”
I don’t remember much of what he said after that. I just sat there with the word cancer running through my mind. If my mind wore tennis shoes, the soles would have been worn down to nothing within minutes. The excited butterflies I had felt earlier in the morning, instantly died and dropped to the deepest pit in my stomach. Thoughts of death, family, friends, surgery, my birthday, and of the unexpected were a collage taking over my mind. I wanted to cry all over again.
As soon as the doctor left the room, the crowd of tears pushed their way out of the burning building. My sobs couldn’t be silenced. My parents were to my side, wiping my tears, and comforting me in an instant. They held me in their arms and gently held together my breaking spirit.
I had surgery the first week in December. The small scar in the middle of my left arm was replaced with a 3 inch gash. It looked like they had taken a scoop out of my arm or that a cannon ball had skimmed the top of my arm taking with it, a good sized chunk. In addition to that scar, I gained two new ones - one just below my arm pit and the other below my left tricep.
My life is a lot like those scars. I started out so naive and carefree. I wasn’t aware of life’s hardships, what was really important outside of my own wants and needs, or that life was not to be taken for granted. Just as my scar was small that day, so was I. After finding out I had skin cancer I was pushed out of that way of thinking. It was like a super hero pushed me out of the way of a speeding car. I grew, was strengthened, and turned my life around so that I was living it the way I knew it should be. Life’s lessons are learned in different ways. Often they’re learned line upon line, but sometimes they’re learned scars upon scars.
