My eldest son said that every conversation now is like talking about the weather. We try to be “normal,” using our old definition of normal, of course. “How was work at the restaurant?” “Did you get any tips today?” “Were you on register or bar?” The whole family is anxious. We have these ridiculous stress dreams: the kind you have after college where you can’t find the classroom, it’s finals day and you realize you didn’t attend the class for the entire semester.
It was time for the biopsy results. Ken and I rehashed the cancer odds all weekend but mostly convinced ourselves that the results would be negative. We decided that if the doctor told me to come back with Ken, then the cysts were cancerous. We waited in the outer room of the doctor’s office, our shoulders pressed into each other.
Finally, after hours that were actually minutes, it was our turn. The doctor came into the waiting room and asked for Ken. Then he looked at me and motioned me to come too … and we knew we had our answer.
The doctor had to say it twice; I’ve never heard of it before: metatastic adenocarcinoma – intestinal cancer that has spread from its place of origin. I asked the obvious question: “what’s the origin?” He didn’t know. Ken’s cancer shouldn’t have spread to his scrotum. Adeno cancers generally spread to the lymph nodes, liver, lungs or bone, NOT the scrotum. I looked it up later: “only a few cases” like Ken’s have been identified, according to a study for the National Institutes of Health. Being in the minority is great when it’s lottery winnings, maybe, but not when it’s cancer.
The doctor sent us for a CT Scan with contrast that day; our case is interesting, he said, sincerely. We drove pell-mell to St Clair Outpatient Diagnostic Center in McMurray for a 2PM appointment. The scan results were back on Thursday and we met again with the doctor. Good news: only the scrotum and lymph nodes were involved. Bad news: we still had no origin. The urologist had already called in a colorectal surgeon; Ken’s colonoscopy was scheduled for the following Tuesday. More bad news: we had to wait through another weekend with no answers and no action.
Ken endured the colonoscopy prep as well as he could. We didn’t talk about it much but he was bleeding, pretty much always a bad sign. We had to leave the house at 6AM for the colonoscopy. The kids — amazing as always — got themselves up for school while I waited 40 minutes for Ken’s procedure to be finished.
The colorectal surgeon said there was a mass in Ken’s anal canal and some “polyp-y” tissue but nothing in the rest of the colon. He biopsied the two spots and told me we’d talk when the results came back. I pushed for WHEN and he promised, “Thursday, no later than Thursday.” I haven’t cried in front of Ken yet but I almost did when the nurse looked at me and whispered “I’m sorry.” Seriously, I pinched my wrist and bit my cheek to pull myself back together. Nothing had changed: we already knew it was cancer!
