White, everywhere—large expanses of pure, wet tablua rasa:
on my toes, hands, plastic sheeting, and even the 18 boards I was prepping on my
sunroom floor for Phase One of a summer porch remodel. I am a messy painter. I try to be neat—really I do—but even my best
prepping efforts dissolve, midstream, into rivulets of pigment.
The project was never meant to be an indoor operation, but
we were not about let plans succumb to a persistent streak of damp
conditions. Fortunately, the sun came
out while the boards dried, and I was able to paint the flip side—a robust
pumpkin—in the great outdoors, which was good news for our floors and
fixtures, but not much help for my hands, which were quickly covered in pumpkin
patina. Nor did the outdoor staging curb my liberal use of various absorbent products on forays throughout the
home, during, say, bathroom or drink breaks.
I recall a moment of vague, fleeting concern over trailing some telltale
pumpkin on paper products in the kitchen and bath, but frankly, had other
priorities.
The beginning of summer, is after all, the time of year my
son has dubbed “art season,” as the warm weather months typically find our home
strewn with sundry media, including, but certainly not limited to tile, rocks,
grout, and various pigments.
So I awoke Tuesday morning to a head full of visions and plans,
a bag of unopened materials—and a really disturbing discovery.
It seemed I was bleeding.
It was hard to determine exactly from where, or why, but yep, every time any tissue-like material came in contact with my person, it was sporting small streaks of fresh
blood. I gave myself a thorough self-examination
for any visible wounds, and finding nothing but sealed skin, came to the grim
conclusion that I was bleeding internally.
I phoned my beloved general practitioner and discovered that
he was out for the day. Then, in horror,
I realized the only option left was to turn myself in at my GYN’s office. I have been vaguely and disturbingly aware
for some time that I have been AWOL from the office for—could it be?—a full six
years, due to the fact that going has a history of, well, not going really well,
and, honestly, nothing has happened in the past 6 years that my faithful family
doctor couldn’t handle.
But now? Now that I
was bleeding internally and my regular doctor out for the day? I remembered that the GYN was really good
about saving room each day for “problem appointments,” so I called and was told
to show up in an hour.
My stomach was in knots. This happens...Every. Single.Year. I mean it, every year, the first
week of summer is marred by sudden medical mayhem, well documented in just
about any late May post on this blog. How
ironic! How tragic! And…how statistically improbable for ahypochondriac to have (albeit historically faux) crises befall the exact sameweek every year. How …wait a minute…how oddly fresh the blood on those tissues
still looked.
I rummaged through my bathroom drawer and pulled out a
safety pin and quickly pricked my thumb, drawing a bright red spot of blood
that I dabbed on to a tissue. I immediately noted how, well, orange all the
other blood spots now appeared to me by comparison. In a sudden wave of realization, I absorbed
that all of the “blood” I had been finding was the exact color of Phase One of
my porch remodel, and I should have cared a little more about pawing all the
household tissues with painted fingers.
Now, I realize a sane person would have just called back to
cancel the appointment, but, plot considered, this is not a tale of solid
thinking. It occurred to me that I had
skirted the system, that I could avoid the month-plus wait for a routine
appointment—the stomach-churning wait that, for six years, kept me from picking
up the phone. I
could face this thing down, swiftly, here and now, in the same way I might
tackle the removal of the band aid I may have used if I actually had been
bleeding.
I arrived to an empty office and a new doctor, who was
obviously still trying to build a following.
I explained about the tissues, and the paint, and that nothing was
really wrong at all, other than I’d been away for a few years. She took the news in stride, asking me
questions along the way to gather my history and cross referencing my answers
with my file.
She expressed surprise that the one actual, Really ScaryThing that happened to me, medically (as opposed to the steady stream of Paint
Scares and routine False Alarms) had actually been detected and treated in the
manner I described. She scoured my file
to see if the diagnosis I reported having 13 years ago was, indeed,
accurate. “You are fortunate,” she said. “I just read a paper on about this
issue. Doctors often don’t take it
seriously, but they are finding that the abnormality you had, if untreated,
really does lead to cancer.” She
continued scanning silently, stopping only to apply an adjective I’ve never
heard to an unrelated cyst I had a few years ago, giving me a double eyebrow raise and a
nod which seemed to indicate that my survival was a notable marvel.
