Almost

Written right before and right after my most recent trip to the doctor

A not quite CT-quality resolution image of my 1 &2/3s kidneys

Almost

I’m going to see my doctor in an hour. He’s a nephrologist—a kidney specialist. When I get there, I will feel out of place. I’m always at least twenty-five years younger than the next youngest patient.

I will have to wait a bit to check in because some higher-ups in the clinic decided to tech-out the office, not understanding that the iPad kiosks were beyond the ken or abilities of the vast majority of their aged and disabled patients.

I don’t mind. The staff is always friendly. They’re so relieved when I breeze through my turn at the screen.

After clicking and signing, I will sit down and wait for my name to be called. A medical assistant will hand me a cup and show me where the bathroom is. They will remind me of the procedure for leaving my urine in the little trap door. Then they will show me to the exam room and escort me back to the bathroom.

After depositing my specimen, I will return to the exam room alone and sit on the sanitary paper resting on top of the exam table.

A nurse will come in and take my blood pressure and check my pulse. The blood pressure will be a little high, but not enough to be worried about.

While I’m waiting, my doctor will be looking at my chart for the first time in a year. He’ll read the report from the lab about my blood work and from the anonymous-to-me radiologist about my CT scan.

Once I’m alone again, I’ll try to read. But my mind will dance with the possibilities instead.

I’m here for my annual visit. The doctor will tell me my lab results, ask some questions about my urination habits and practices, and hopefully tell me I’m still cancer-free.

This is my third pilgrimage to the cancer oracle. If I’m clean this time, I get to wait two years for my next visit.

The odds are overwhelmingly good for me—there is almost no chance my cancer has recurred.

Almost.

It’s the almost that keeps me from reading, that makes me extra patient with the older patients so obviously much sicker than I am, and it’s the almost that makes my blood pressure a little high but not enough to be worried about.

I was incredibly lucky three years ago. My kidney cancer was caught as early as possible on a fluke. I just happened to get a rare gut infection that baffled the ER doctors enough to order me a CT scan. My immune system has never been the same since the infection. It took me months to recover from it, and then I went straight into having a cancerous tumor and 1/3 of my kidney removed.

No chemo and no radiation. Someone I used to go to church with remarked that it’s not like I had real cancer since I only had surgery.

Maybe not.

My mom had real breast cancer—mastectomy, chemo, and radiation. She called it “the works.”

My dad had real non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He had it four times, lived in hospital oncology wards for weeks on end, received a bone marrow transplant, and then lived cancer-free until he wasn’t.

He died of secondary acute leukemia three months before my kidney cancer surgery.

Maybe cancer is only real if it kills you.

These are all the thoughts I will do-si-do with in the exam room.

I will also wonder if I squandered the opportunity that cancer presented me with. Did I fail at having cancer if I didn’t make any radical changes? I joked my way through the cancer process because that’s what I do.

I even named my tumor and gave it a personality.

But I didn’t become an acclaimed novelist or record a life-changing TED talk. I was not inspirational, and all of my aspirations remain strictly aspirational.

After the visit, I will text our family chat if the results are good, and then I’ll treat myself to a big-ass Coke and some greasy food.

I don’t know what I’ll do if the results are not good. I’ll probably still get a big-ass Coke.

It’s time for me to leave now.

It’s almost certain that I’m going to get some good news. Almost.

* * *

I’m back now. The visit went almost as expected. On the way to the appointment, I listened to my carefully curated playlist of 90s alternative music.

The music from when you’re fifteen is perfectly calibrated to bring you the comfort you need in times of anxious uncertainty. It feels like the sublime awkwardness of your first kiss, the cutting betrayal of the last time you believed in magic, incandescent adolescent body odor, the best lie you ever got away with, and the now distant beliefs that you were both invisible and bulletproof.

Because of past failures, I had carefully prepped my bladder for the urine sample by drinking enough water to make a thirsty camel burst.

My blood pressure was perfect upon the second measuring. The first time, it was a little high—enough to maybe worry about if it didn’t come down.

The doctor delivered surprisingly good news. My tests were all great, and then he said, “We consider you cured.”

The word cured hit me with surprising force.

I mumbled my thanks, but in my mind, I remembered my dad’s oncologist declaring him cured after his bone marrow transplant had worked.

Dad would still die of a related cancer that his bone marrow transplant had made essentially untreatable. He was dead at 66—an age that feels increasingly young.

Still, my dad enjoyed 20 years of relative health after the transplant.

That’s not nothing—but it’s still a life cut short.

The doctor had said, “…consider you cured.”

The doctor was unaware of my manic mental meanderings. In the next breath, he asked me if I had any problems.

Hidden behind my mask, a wry smile spread over my face and crept into my voice as I replied, “I have lots of problems, but nothing having to do with my kidneys.”

He laughed and gave me a fist bump.

He congratulated me and told me there would be no more follow-ups, tests, or scans unless something changed.

I was cured.

I delivered a clearer and more sincere thank you and went on my way.

I texted my family the good news, drank a refreshing big-ass Coke, and listened to my 90s playlist.

The music from when you’re fifteen is perfectly calibrated for celebrating life-affirming moments like being declared cured of cancer.

Now I can go about life and almost not have to worry about cancer at all.

Almost.

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Thanks for reading!

Be the weird you want to see in the world!

Cheers,

Jason