The First Cut

Shortly after reaching the awkward, angsty age of eleven, I noticed a change in my body. No, not that kind of change. This was not the ominous harbinger of womanhood. Instead it was the signpost of something more sinister than even adolescence. For months I had what was thought to be a superficial wound in my right leg that simply would not heal. There had been no trauma, though a spider bite had been posited as a possible cause. Needless to say, I still hate spiders. Yet despite the lack of a probable mechanism, there remained this unexplained, non-healing ulcer. What was not readily apparent was that, beneath that lesion, lurked a softball-sized tumor.

On what was to be the auspicious occasion known as the first day of sixth grade, I awoke with fever and ear pain. My mother took me to my pediatrician to confirm my presumed ear infection. While I was there, he looked at the lesion and, seeing it still had not healed, sent us immediately to a dermatologist’s office upstairs in the same building. It is only now that I realize there is no way my pediatrician knew exactly what was going on, given how rare this tumor is in the pediatric population. But he definitely knew something was not right. I also now know how extremely unlikely it is to get a same day dermatology appointment. But due to a highly unlikely appointment scheduling miracle (or perhaps a phone call from a concerned pediatrician), there I was. The dermatologist took one look at it, and the next thing I knew, he was wielding a scalpel and cutting off a sample for biopsy. Sixteen biopsies and eleven surgeries later, I still remember crying when he cut into me. I suppose you always do remember your first time.

They told my mom they would call her in a week to discuss the results. Instead they called her four days later, on a Friday, to inform her I had a type of cancer known as dermatofibrosarcoma, for which I needed surgery. Thirty years later, I still remember many details of that day, Friday, September 15th, 1989. I recall the drive to the hospital, being angry that mom dared drink a diet Dr. Pepper in front of me while I was NPO (nil per os, which is Latin for the torture of fasting prior to anesthesia), what I was wearing (a black cotton jumper with pale peach shirt–yes I am judging my own fashion choices as I write this), and my fear of pain and needles, which is laughable now. As the nurse and anesthesiologist wheeled me back to the operating room, I remember my grandmother crying. The distinctive, noxious smell of inhaled anesthetic (gas) is a scent that I could place anywhere. As I counted backwards from 100, I thought about how the gas smelled like white out, a smell that transports me back to that cold OR. Although I had no way of predicting the number of subsequent encounters I would have in the operating room in the years following my cancer diagnosis, it almost feels apropos that my diagnosis and first surgery came in September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. As September draws to a close, I want to recognize and honor all the survivors of childhood cancer, those who are still fighting, and those who are no longer with us physically but who have touched our lives in immeasurable ways.