dominant features.
“Goddamn cancer,” she’d said to herself. “Goddamn fucking cancer.”
Ovarian fucking cancer. Such a secret disease. This tiny pain in Annie’s stomach. First quiet, and then more and more insistent. Then one day when Laura finally pays attention Annie is by the fountain in the center of campus, doubled over with the constant pain, and she cannot move. Annie eats an apple and feels as if she has swallowed a turkey whole. Pounds dropping away as if she has been injected with Mr. Atkins personally. Blood, tiny drops the color of a Wisconsin sunset in early fall, moving from her vagina when she is not even close to her period and then days of it and then the look on the doctor’s face when she tells her all of this, when Annie G. Freeman lines up all of her symptoms and the doctor says nothing for a moment, then calls the hospital, and Annie G. Freeman does not go home that night or for many nights after that.
There are quick calls from the hospital. The network is alerted. Katherine, Annie’s two sons, Jill, Laura, neighbors, the assistant who will cancel classes. Quick calls and the feeling that the doctor already knows something.
The doctor with the gentle eyes and hands that glide like only a female doctor’s hands can glide. A female doctor who knows what it is like to have objects the size of a toaster oven inserted into a vagina. A doctor who knows that the soft placing of a hand on a knee or arm or even on the side of a worried face before an examination can make a woman feel safe and protected. The hands of a doctor that take their time and move slowly with the orchestrated sounds of a female voice. The assurance and that kind voice of knowing because she has been there, felt that, winced at the exact same moment when something so unnatural moves into a natural place.
The doctor who tells you, “Yes, I will be honest.” And “No, there is no way to know for sure,” and “Maybe it will be okay,” and then, “Maybe it will not.”
The female doctor who tells her secretary, “Please hold my calls and cancel my last three appointments.” The doctor who says this because she gives a damn. The doctor who gives a damn beyond what the HMO tells her to do and the doctor who knows it takes more than fifteen minutes to tell a woman she may have a form of cancer that will kill her. She may have a form of cancer that has already pawed its way past her absolutely fabulous ovaries. The same ovaries that helped her generate two of the most remarkable sons on the face of the earth. The same ovaries that pelted her with cramps and made her drop to her knees in bathrooms throughout the continental United States and in five foreign countries. The same ovaries that she doubted when she was thirteen years old because half of her friends already had their periods and her menstrual cycle was just getting cranked up. The same ovaries that claimed her as “woman” and made her want so desperately to feel things she would never have felt without them—rising tides, the glance of a handsome man, the yearning to touch the tiny hairs on the head of her own baby, the salt from the tears of her best woman friend, the warm ashes from a fire that kept her warm for days and nights along the shores of Lake Superior, the scent of lust rising from inside of her own skin, the desperate need to always say yes.
The doctor who will hold on to you as tightly as you hold on to her and who will place you without letting you go into the arms of another doctor who will do another test and then whisk you off into the arms of yet another doctor. She will not let you go because she is yours and you are hers and your malignant tumors are now a shared part of a relationship that is a mixture of grief, sadness, anger, longing, zeal, panic, hurt, wondering, more longing and something else indescribable.
Annie’s tumors started out as cells that found her ovaries such an inviting, warm and friendly place. So friendly that
“Goddamn cancer,” she’d said to herself. “Goddamn fucking cancer.”
Ovarian fucking cancer. Such a secret disease. This tiny pain in Annie’s stomach. First quiet, and then more and more insistent. Then one day when Laura finally pays attention Annie is by the fountain in the center of campus, doubled over with the constant pain, and she cannot move. Annie eats an apple and feels as if she has swallowed a turkey whole. Pounds dropping away as if she has been injected with Mr. Atkins personally. Blood, tiny drops the color of a Wisconsin sunset in early fall, moving from her vagina when she is not even close to her period and then days of it and then the look on the doctor’s face when she tells her all of this, when Annie G. Freeman lines up all of her symptoms and the doctor says nothing for a moment, then calls the hospital, and Annie G. Freeman does not go home that night or for many nights after that.
There are quick calls from the hospital. The network is alerted. Katherine, Annie’s two sons, Jill, Laura, neighbors, the assistant who will cancel classes. Quick calls and the feeling that the doctor already knows something.
The doctor with the gentle eyes and hands that glide like only a female doctor’s hands can glide. A female doctor who knows what it is like to have objects the size of a toaster oven inserted into a vagina. A doctor who knows that the soft placing of a hand on a knee or arm or even on the side of a worried face before an examination can make a woman feel safe and protected. The hands of a doctor that take their time and move slowly with the orchestrated sounds of a female voice. The assurance and that kind voice of knowing because she has been there, felt that, winced at the exact same moment when something so unnatural moves into a natural place.
The doctor who tells you, “Yes, I will be honest.” And “No, there is no way to know for sure,” and “Maybe it will be okay,” and then, “Maybe it will not.”
The female doctor who tells her secretary, “Please hold my calls and cancel my last three appointments.” The doctor who says this because she gives a damn. The doctor who gives a damn beyond what the HMO tells her to do and the doctor who knows it takes more than fifteen minutes to tell a woman she may have a form of cancer that will kill her. She may have a form of cancer that has already pawed its way past her absolutely fabulous ovaries. The same ovaries that helped her generate two of the most remarkable sons on the face of the earth. The same ovaries that pelted her with cramps and made her drop to her knees in bathrooms throughout the continental United States and in five foreign countries. The same ovaries that she doubted when she was thirteen years old because half of her friends already had their periods and her menstrual cycle was just getting cranked up. The same ovaries that claimed her as “woman” and made her want so desperately to feel things she would never have felt without them—rising tides, the glance of a handsome man, the yearning to touch the tiny hairs on the head of her own baby, the salt from the tears of her best woman friend, the warm ashes from a fire that kept her warm for days and nights along the shores of Lake Superior, the scent of lust rising from inside of her own skin, the desperate need to always say yes.
The doctor who will hold on to you as tightly as you hold on to her and who will place you without letting you go into the arms of another doctor who will do another test and then whisk you off into the arms of yet another doctor. She will not let you go because she is yours and you are hers and your malignant tumors are now a shared part of a relationship that is a mixture of grief, sadness, anger, longing, zeal, panic, hurt, wondering, more longing and something else indescribable.
Annie’s tumors started out as cells that found her ovaries such an inviting, warm and friendly place. So friendly that
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