I decided that I had cancer.
I had this little thing on my nose. And if you went at it like a pimple, it would bleed for over an hour...
And after doing some reading online about skin cancer, well, I figured I had a touch of skin cancer. This did not freak me out, but I assumed it was so. I decided I would get it removed and like so many other people who get things removed, I'd be fine with the change.
Life would continue. I'd be cancer free. The sun would keep beating down on me, but I would forever be protected by Sea & Ski SPF 50. And though the aging process cannot be halted, I would fare well against future cancer. I would add the application of sun block to the rest of my keep-the-future-corpse-shiny scheme---flossing, trimming, sacrificing grilled cheese sandwiches.
I went to the dermatologist in the Mt. Sinai medical tower. Dr. Mekelburg (a name that demands to be said out loud with a clownish accent and a dada tilt of the head toward the ridiculousness of unknowing and the resignation to omniscience) and I waited for an hour with all the others who trekked to Beverly Hills to have their lumps examined. And then I got into an examination room where I waited again.
And though he wasn't wearing floppy shoes and a red nose, that joyful Mekelberg came at me, took one look at my nose lump and told me without a clown tone and with one-hundred percent assurance that this thing was not cancer and that he would have it off in a jiffy if I wasn't wary of possible scarring.
I told him to have at it.
Which he did do. The thing to be excised was just some sort of keratin buildup...but it did have its own blood vessel supply in there and this is the reason I thought it was cancer. Novocain, Snip, Gone, Ointment, Bandage, Melanoma check, out the door just two hours after I had arrived. Not an altered DNA cancer cell in sight.
My advice to myself: I think I need to stop the self diagnosis. And, I think I need to assume that most things are not cancer. This new approach should serve me well.
And every now and then, just to lighten things up, I will say Mekelburg like some sort of deranged clown.
3 comments:
Gosh, I can relate to your story! I have been a hypochondriac (mild) all my life. The funny thing is, as I get older, I am less and less a hypochondriac.
I think you should pronounce it like a question posed by Mel Brooks: Mekelboig? I get those skin things all the time. Be grateful for the Italian in you. Once it was cancer. But the really slow kind and not one that kills. So either way, you're good. It's always better to picture ourselves cancer-free.
Poor guy...
He's lucky it wasn't Schmeckelberg after his ancestors arrived at Ellis Island, and some schmuck wrote it wrong on the Entry Papers!
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