This is crazy. I wrote my 5 Minute Friday post and it
disappeared.
It evaporated. I really don’t want to join this club nor do I want to share about joining this club because I am admittedly really frightened about it.
Last Friday morning I missed 5 Minute Friday. I was at my doctor, finally getting,, would I call it a mole? A splotch on my skin? A pink angel’s kiss right between my laugh lines? checked out.
She took one look and said, “Ohhhh, yes… suspicious.”
They shot me up with Tetanus just because I happened to be there, took photos and wrote up a referral.
“Any family history with skin cancer?” she asked.
“Well, I know my uncle had it because he has a scar almost in exactly the same spot on his face.”
“Just your uncle?” she asked. I reassured her that as far as I knew, it was just my uncle, and my other uncle, both brothers of my mother. She told me it might be two weeks for the referral, but she would send the photos they took to dermatology that day and to call if in two weeks they hadn’t called me.
I was shaken when I left her office. Shaken and sad and scared, but relieved I had taken the initiative.
My daughter had her 15th Birthday tea the next day, so I held it together. I didn’t want to call my eighty-year-old mother and fall apart until after Emma’s party.
I bet you know what happened.
When I called her to ask “Has anyone in the family other than Uncle Bob had skin cancer” praying for an “Oh, no, ofcourse not” instead I heard, “Oh, sure. I had it, Granny had it… your sister Sue might have had it.”
I probed deeper to find Mom had basal cell carcinoma six times.
I asked, “What do you mean, Sue might have had it?”
“She might have had it and I just forgot. But I think she might.”
The Jordan family is still in deep denial of joining the Cancer Club.
I sent Sue a facebook message, “Random, but have you ever had basal cell carcinoma?”
“Yep, I have. Two or three times.”
And Mom forgot? And she talked about it so lightly. “Yeah, they just burned it off.”
I was so shocked I didn’t ask for more details.
I searched online for more information and filled my mind with needless terror from faces with the newest surgery technique who had long scars down their cheeks.
How can this be nothing? I know it’s the most common cancer, I know it doesn’t metastasize very often… but…
I emailed my doctor with the additional information. Every woman member in my direct family line has had basal cell carcinoma.
My referral came through that day. I half way expected them
to email me a
membership card. On September 5, I will get a biopsy and a full
body inspection. I nervously scan myself and have found a couple more curious
patches.
The numbers 6 and 2 or 3 with “no big deal” ping pong around my head.
I have a poetry performance tonight. I don’t want to go.
I would rather stay invisible, inside, in denial.
This is a club I didn’t ever want to join.
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Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
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