Page 67 of When Stars Collide
Elle rolled her eyes. “Goodnight.” She turned to head to the door, but stopped herself just short of it, turning around to face me. “I know it may not seem possible right now, but you’ll get your happy ending someday. I know it.”
*****
My phone rang just as I entered the office. Annoyed, I stopped shy of the elevator, grasping my coffee and purse straps in one hand, while looking through the cavernous faux designer bag I’d purchased from a shady vendor around the corner from my apartment. When I first saw the peddler, I’d half-expected him to open his long trench coat to reveal rows of watches, like a comic strip I’d seen in the newspaper when I was a child. Honestly, I had been a little disappointedwhen that hadn’t happened. After what felt like an hour, I found my phone, answering it on the last ring.
“Hello?”
“Is this Mena Straszewski?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“Ms. Straszewski, this is Dr. Zachary Lee.”
“Oh, yeah. From the dermatology clinic.”
“That’s right. Could you verify your date of birth, please?
“February 27, 1986.”
“Mena, are you in a position where you could come by the office?”
“Not really,” I answered him, scooting inside of an empty elevator car right as the door was beginning to close. “I’m at work, and I have a mandatory staff meeting this morning. Whatever you need to tell me, could you do it over the phone?”
Dr. Lee sighed. “I would prefer not to, but I understand how busy life is, so I will cut to the chase. We received the result of the biopsy from the mole we removed last week.”
“Wow, if you’re calling me about that, it must have been a real freak show. What? Is it a new specimen of mole or something?”
“Not exactly. We’ll need to do further testing to find out the extent of everything, but the results came back pretty conclusive.”
“Pretty conclusive for what?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but you have cancer.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Melanoma? Isn’t that just skin cancer? Can’t I just have it cut out and be done with it?”
Across from me in the exam room, Dr. Lee shook his head. “That’s a misconception, only because so many people aren’t educated when it comes to melanoma. Which is a shame, because it’s becoming increasingly more common—especially in young women. If you were to rattle off any other type of cancer to them, they would certainly understand the seriousness of the diagnosis. Melanoma isn’t just skin cancer, Mena. Sure, yours started in a mole on your skin, but melanoma is aggressive. As with any other form of cancer, its goal is to grow and spread, consuming everything in its path.”
I was suddenly overcome by a numbness gripping my entire body. “Wh-What are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you that this is a very serious diagnosis, requiring aggressive medical intervention. At just over two millimeters, the depth of your tumor is concerning in that there’s a possibility that it could have already spread to your lymph nodes. Which is why I’m referring you to an oncological surgeon.”
“An oncologist? A doctor who treats …”
“Cancer. Yes. You have stage two cancer.” Dr. Lee’s eyes softened, which I presume was meant to calm or maybe provide some reassurance to me. But all I could feel was conflict. All I wanted to do was scream, cry, throw up, and run out of the office all at the same time. Internally, I had already done all four of those things a thousand times over. Externally, though, I remained seated on the exam table, trying my best not to move to avoid listening to the annoying sound of the exam table paper crinkling underneath me. When I failed to say anything further, Dr Lee continued, “The oncological surgeon will schedule you for a procedure called a wide local excision, where they will remove quite a large area of tissue around the initial excision site in the hope that they will be able to obtain clear margins. Just prior to surgery, you’ll undergo a procedure called a lymphoscintigraphy. This procedure will help locate the sentinel lymph nodes, which are the nodes that, if the cancer has spread, would have cancer cells in them. Once identified, these lymph nodes will be removed at the same time as your wide local excision is performed.”
“And if the lymph nodes are cancerous?”
“Then more lymph nodes from the same area will be removed and biopsied and you will be re-staged at a stage three. The oncologist will then most likely order a PET scan to see whether the cancer has spread to other parts of your body.”
“And if it has?”
“That’s a conversation that you hopefully won’t have to have.” My insides must have been reflected on my outside, as Dr. Lee’s attitude switched from doom and gloom to a more positive note. “But no matter the final stage, there are treatment options available that, only ten years ago, weren’t around. No matter what, you have a fighting chance at beating this.
*****
I returned to the office later that day in a daze, wishing I would have called off work for the rest of the day, instead of coming back in. It felt like I was on autopilot; my body carried out all the normal aspects of my daily life while my mind was a million and one miles away. When I reached my office, after purposely avoiding eye contact with anyone who may try to ask me questions, I closed my door and sat down at my desk, staring blankly at my screen. Despite knowing exactly what the email I pulled up and left on my screen said, my mind wouldn’t allow me to comprehend it. Nothing seemed real, yet, conversely, everything seemed real all at the same time. My head spun, struggling to try to make sense of it all, so much so that by the time Phineas opened my door to poke his head inside, I was already in tears.
