“Alright, your turn: if you could have anything come out of your belly button, what would it be?”
Eleven sets of eager eyes found mine. What a way to introduce yourself to a new community: Hi, judge me based on what thing I would choose to come out of a sweaty, dark hole in my stomach.
I wanted to come off as funny. As endearing. Clever. I wanted to have a good answer, if that was even possible. I had already taken too long, and I could feel their eyes digging that hole in my stomach until it reached the base of my spine. Panic—that petty, first-day-of-school panic—set in.
“Endless belly buttons,” I answered.
#
I yawned on my way into the elegantly named Women’s Pavilion, navigating around slender sheets of glass and panels of bright wood.
The nurse called me back and said, “Dr. Harrington will be in shortly. She has a medical student shadowing her today, but if you don’t want her present for your appointment, just let the doctor know.”
I nodded. I didn’t mind. I just wanted to figure out what was wrong. This wasn’t the first time I’d lost my period for more than six months. But it was the first time it hadn’t come back. I needed answers. The medical student could look me in the eye and say, “your reproductive organs make me want to choose a different career path” as long as she validated my experiences.
I was convinced that my job had stolen my periods. Stress, overexertion, and daily anxiety attacks had taken away the necessity to bleed. I remembered applying for the job and feeling certain that this opportunity in environmental education would be the right fit, never mind the dorm-style accommodations, meager stipend, or sixty-hour workweek. I spent months aching for the job. Now, it ached me.
Working and living in the same place had gotten to me. There was no way to compartmentalize my life, including the pain. I didn’t know if my digestive problems were related to my lost menstrual cycle. Working late and changing schedules had pissed off my bowels. And trying to fall asleep to children stomping over my head every night had set my uterus off: no, we won’t be having one of those monsters anytime soon, thank you very much.
Dr. Harrington burst through the doors with her hand already extended to shake mine.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Harrington.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“You, too. And this,” she motioned to the woman who had just caught up with her at the door, “is Lisa.”
“Hello,” Lisa and I said at the same time.
Dr. Harrington’s energy was startling for an early morning appointment. She left the room with her sentence still hanging so that I could change into the gown and climb into the stirrups. Giddy up, doc.
Dr. Harrington adorned the signature blue gloves and began pressing along my abdomen.
“Alright. Yep, feels normal. Right side is all good. Lisa? Want to feel here?”
Lisa’s gloved hands pressed down harder, and I could feel them shaking a little. She was nervous. I wondered if I was her first real patient. After all, I had one of the earliest appointments of the day.
“Now let’s just go over here to the left side, and oph!” Her hands stopped: “feels like we may have something here.”
“That kind of hurts,” I admitted apologetically.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You know, it feels to me like we might have a fibroid here. Lisa, why don’t you tell me what you’re feeling? Be very gentle.”
Or else I’ll kick you in the face.
Lisa’s gloved hands stroked the same delicate area. She pushed too hard, too, but it wasn’t as startling the second time. I relaxed my head back down onto the papered pink cushion.
“Yeah, something hard,” she said.
Before I had a chance to ask, Dr. Harrington explained the benign little muscle growth that is a fibroid.
“But it shouldn’t cause you to stop bleeding. If anything, it should do the opposite.”
I pondered this quietly as Lisa coached me into a horizontal position better suited for the more intimate portion of the exam.
Dr. Harrington talked me through what she planned to do, bent down, and began the pelvic exam. She took the same approach as with the abdomen: she went right to left. On the left side, she applied heavy pressure with a caution of pain, and I almost lunged at her when she found the so-called fibroid.
“I think we found it,” she joked.
“Fibroids are nothing to worry about, but I’ll need to get a better look at it. I’m gonna have you come back for an ultrasound next week, ok?”
I guided an unsteady hand to the skin barrier between me and the mass, where I felt a pulsing. Like my belly button had developed its own heartbeat.
Ok.
#
“Well, don’t you look all cute and summery,” Dr. Harrington said to me as she walked in the room.
I’m wearing all black.
“Thank you.”
“So, I took a look at the ultrasound, which is why I wanted to talk to you in person today. I hope it’s not an inconvenience.”
“No, it’s fine,” I lied. The car I had to borrow from a coworker. The hour-long commute in either direction. The unpaid half-day off I had to demand from my supervisor, granted only at the promise that I was close to settling all my recent absences. The annoyed on-deck coworker who covered for me for yet another doctor’s appointment.
“Good. Ok, so I’m going to pull up a couple different images so that you can see what’s going on. Here’s your right ovary,” she pointed to a mushy gray mass in the center of the screen.
I frowned at how meek the queen of my reproductive system looked. Your highness, you appear to be unfit for public viewing. Please, have some decency for the nice gynecologist.
“And here,” she pressed the next arrow, “is your left.”
I knew I couldn’t be pregnant, but the thought crossed my mind as it adjusted to the puffy black silhouette in the new image.
“What am I looking at?” I asked.
“Well, you should be looking at your left ovary. But, see this guy here?” She traced a circle around the silhouette. “This guy’s blocking our view. We can’t even see your left ovary behind this,” she said.
What a dick. “Ok…what is this guy?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she laced her fingers together over the counter, took off her glasses, and studied my eyes. I felt the first jolt of panic pressing on my abdomen somewhere low. Somewhere just behind my belly button.
“I’m not sure. It’s not a fibroid, but it could be a couple of things. For now, we can just refer to it as a mass. And let me tell you—this thing has real mass. Look.”
She flipped to the backside of the ultrasound tech’s sheet and drew a circle with the help of a ruler to measure the diameter.
“Ten point six centimeters. Almost the size of a CD!”
“So, does this explain the loss of my periods?”
“It certainly could. But I can’t say for sure until we know what it is.”
My tongue tripped over itself trying to ask the next question fast enough: “How about my digestive issues?”
“Maybe,” she shrugged, as if the possibilities were endless. Does this explain my tendency to make bad puns? How about my bushy eyebrows?
“Again, it all depends on what we’re dealing with. So, let’s talk about some of the more likely possibilities.”
I zoned out as she walked me through the options. Really, the possibilities did seem endless. But she clearly favored two. When she finished explaining everything, she assumed her I’ve-just-said-something-serious pose and scanned my face.
“Are you okay? I know this information is probably unexpected.”
“I’m fine. I just…I guess I want to know what the best- and worst-case scenarios are?”
“Best-case scenario: it’s just an overgrown cyst that we can drain and remove easily. We’re not really at a stage to talk about the worst-case scenario, but remember the term I used earlier? Granulosis cell tumor?” she asked.
Of course I don’t remember. “Yes, I remember.”
“Again, we’re not at this stage yet, and you’re really young, so this is just not as likely, but it could be a malignant tumor,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hands.
Aha. I missed that earlier. Malignant. My heart skipped a beat or two. The next obvious word came to mind, and I tried to make sense of it or form it into something familiar before letting it escape.
“So…cancer?” I tested the word aloud, checking for her response.
“Cancer.”
#
Sarah, the MRI technician, handed me a sheet of music genres to listen to during the exam. She offered to play a clip of the channels I wanted to hear to help me decide. It didn’t really matter, but I couldn’t seem to choose. They all sounded terrible.
Sarah offered a suggestion: “Anything but the pop channel is okay. Or you could just listen to the blood pumping in your ears.” She winked. The five seconds of the pop channel killed my smile immediately.
I nodded and said, “The soothing instrumental channel, please.”
She started explaining the process very thoroughly, emphasizing the same key element: don’t move. Challenge accepted. The awaiting slab of white was bright, sterile, and uninviting.
“Like Dr. Harrington said, we’ll be taking images to get an idea of the density so that she can figure out what the mass is.”
“And I’m guessing—like the ultrasound—you won’t be able to give your own opinion or tell me what you’re seeing?” It wasn’t accusatory, and I could tell from her reaction that she understood what I was trying to convey.
“Sadly, no. Liability issues, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give you my honest opinion sometimes.” Her smile unzipped just enough to flash an image of her teeth underneath.
I trusted Dr. Harrington with my life; I trusted this woman with my sanity. Can we just ditch work and get a couple margaritas after this?
Work was not the distraction I needed. When cancer came into the conversation, I couldn’t care about my students anymore. Or their helpless chaperones waking me up in the middle of the night to plunge their toilet for them. Or their evening campfires that I had to not only light but then lead until they got tired. Even on my best day, my stamina was gone by the evening dinner I had to eat across from excitable eleven-year-olds. Now, on my worst, it was impossible.
When I presented Dr. Harrington’s possibilities to my boss, I didn’t know what I was expecting. Sympathy? Understanding? Being advised to quit and focus on my health? I was not expecting to be greeted with pursed lips, a vague apology, and the request of editing a brochure for her in the scant minutes before my next class began. Her own mother worked in oncology. Do you want me to tattle to your mother?
Sarah’s voice in my ear proved preferable to the music after the very first round of imaging: “Holy shit…that is the largest pelvic mass I’ve ever seen!”
“Really?”
“I’ve been a tech for eight years, and I swear to you, this is the largest I’ve ever seen. I mean, there’s literally no room for it.”
“Wow.” I shivered, unsure how to process the revelation.
Not the superlative I wanted.
Sarah spoke again: “you said you’ve been having digestive problems, right?
“Yes.” What a simple answer to the defining chronic pain of the past three years.
“I’m sending you home with a copy of the images from today. But look at this,” she urged, pulling me to the computer after the last round of imaging.
“See this giant white blob? It’s the largest thing in your pelvis right now. That’s the mass.”
“Oh my god…” Largest of Sarah’s career or not, it was objectively huge. Oblong, stark white, and crowding out everything in its way. And as if to help me direct my anger, it had a sweet, Pacman-like face. Good thing I’m not afraid of ghosts.
“Do you feel like you have to pee all the time?”
“Actually, yeah. Why?”
“See this little tube sock shaped thing here? That’s your bladder. This thing has been leaning against your bladder so far that it forced it to assume an L shape. That’s not the way a bladder should be shaped.”
“Woah…”
“And,” she changed images, clearly excited, “this is your colon. See how it’s winding around the mass? The colon isn’t supposed to bend that way. No wonder you’re having problems.”
I echoed Sarah’s initial reaction during the first set of scans: “Holy shit.”
“You should be getting the results in two days.”
Two days to find out if this explained my loss of periods. Two days to find out if this explained the years-long chronic pain that had landed me in the ER only a few months prior. Two days to find out if I had cancer.
Before I turned the car on, I pressed a hand to my abdomen, running a few fingers in and out of the dip of my belly button. I imagined myself pressing hard enough to puncture the skin. Maybe hard enough to cut through the noise of my insides and find the intruder. Yank it out and detach it from my body like severing an umbilical cord that was never meant to nourish in the first place.
I returned both hands to the steering wheel and let a few tears fall into my lap. I still had to teach a three-hour rock climbing class that night. I still had to convince 12-year-olds that they can achieve all their goals. That they’re in control of their situation and can overcome their fears if they just try.
Bullshit.
#
Two days. That’s what Sarah said. It had been four when I picked up my phone to call. Tomorrow was the start to a long Memorial Day weekend, and I knew that if I didn’t get the news today, I’d have to wait four more days. Worse yet, I had a little vacation planned for those four days. Regardless of the answer, I had to know it before taking off.
I walked the small gravel road connecting the garden and the trailhead. Back and forth, phone in hand, working up the guts to call.
No need. My phone lit up with an unknown number from the area code of the clinic. I exhaled so hard that I could feel my empty lungs battering against my rib cage.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Carrie from Dr. Harington’s office. How are you doing today?”
Peachy, Carrie. Just peachy. “I’m ok.”
“I’m calling because we have an update on your file that we wanted to share with you before the long weekend.”
“Ok, great.”
“Ok, well Dr. Harington is out of the office today. She apologizes because the ultrasound tech didn’t review or share the findings with her until late last night, so she’ll be following up with you on Tuesday.”
What?
“Oh…so there’s no one who can share the findings with me?”
“No, unfortunately,” Carrie whined, “And I just wanted to let you know that before going off on a long break, ok?”
“Oh, ok,” I caved, “thank you.”
I heard her smile. “You’re welcome. Have a nice day. Buh-bye.”
My body collapsed onto the little wooden bench in front of our education animals. I bathed in the sunlight with my eyes closed, listening to the turkey vulture ruffle his feathers.
How would you like telling someone they have cancer?
I stood on top of the bench and dialed the number back.
Carrie’s voice greeted me: “Women’s Pavilion, this is Carrie?”
“Hi, Carrie? We just spoke on the phone a few minutes ago regarding Dr. Harrington and my ultrasound results.”
“Oh, yes. How can I help you?” she said.
“I know you said Dr. Harrington is out of the office, but I was wondering if anyone could contact her for me outside of the office? I just…I really need to know these results because…because it might be cancer.”
Four days of repressed outbursts spilled through the phone to poor Carrie’s ear. It was the first time I had admitted to myself that it really might be cancer.
Carrie sucked in some air and said, “Ok, I will try to call the doctor, and see if she would be willing to share her findings with you outside the office.”
“Ok. Ok…ok. Thank you so much.” I covered my mouth to filter the sobbing. I had to bite down hard on my index finger to clench my sputtering jaw.
“I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll try my best, dear. Ok?”
“Ok.”
“Sit tight, dear.”
Phone gripped tightly by my side, I paced the path by the garden once, twice, three times, feeling more and more frantic with each pass. The sudden vibration caused me to jump backwards and throw the phone a couple inches in the air.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Dr. Harrington,” her familiar voice chimed.
“Hi, yes, I’m so sorry to bother you outside of the office-”
“Stop. Don’t worry about it. I was actually supposed to be in the office today anyway.”
She didn’t sound upset. Just firm.
“Well, thank you. I’m really glad that you called.”
“I understand. And I really am sorry that we weren’t able to get back to you sooner. I did take a look at your images and discussed them with the ultrasound tech.”
She paused again briefly, and I felt like I was supposed to fill the space. “Ok.”
“To be honest, it doesn’t look good. It really doesn’t. It’s pretty dense, which as we discussed, is more consistent with a granulosis cell tumor. Let me remind you that this is not an actual diagnosis. It could still be a different tumor type.”
“But it can’t be a cyst?” I asked.
“Right; that’s not likely at this point.”
Cancer.
“So, what happens now?”
She cleared her throat, “I’m going to refer you to a gynecological oncologist and dear friend of mine. She’ll be the one doing your surgery. No matter what this is, it needs to come out. And soon.”
“You probably can’t answer this but what is the likeliness of each tumor type?”
“Can’t answer that,” she said sternly.
Maybe she heard me stifling a cry, but she injected her opinion anyway: “If I had to guess, I’d guess that it’s a granulosis cell tumor, stage one. If that’s true, when they remove it, that’ll be the end of it. No radiation. No removal of lymph nodes. Just,” she snapped, “take the tumor, and maybe the ovary with it.”
“Ok. Even though it’s not the best news, it’s coming out, right? That’s all that matters,” I said with an evenness that surprised me.
“That’s all that matters.” she agreed. “Oh, and make sure that when you go to her office, you sign a medical release of your records so that I can track your progress, ok?”
I felt a fluttering of affection. Even though she was probably just being a good doctor, I felt like she was asking as my friend. It dawned on me that I may never see her again now that my case was in the oncologist’s hands. She was the one who believed me. She was the one who went searching for an answer. She was the one who found something. And cared enough about me to deliver shitty news on her day off before a three-day weekend.
“Ok. Thank you, Dr. Harrington.”
“You’re welcome. Everything’s going to be ok.” We hung up at the same time.
I sent both hands to my navel to greet the pain.
“I have cancer.”
Two seconds of silent acceptance. I have no levity left.
#
Vacation started with a tearful drive up to the city with my friend. I could see the extrovert in her shifting uncomfortably from the silence I offered. Hey, still think it was a good idea for you to tag along on my weekend getaway?
“I’m probably going to need some alone time on this trip,” I said flatly.
I could feel her looking at me with an apology in her eyes. Despite planning for a solo trip, she’d asked to join in on my plans. But that was before I had cancer. That was before alone time was a survival technique rather than a quaint respite from living with a dozen other people. And yet, I was glad not to be alone. Even if we’d spend our time together in silence, I was grateful to have support.
The next morning, we donned breathable cotton and braved the fierce heat of the sidewalks leading to the farmer’s market. I promised myself that I would let my cancer sleep in while I ran around the city enjoying myself. Not that I could forget. But I could give myself permission to be fully on vacation, even if it was just for a day.
But as we turned the final corner to enter the block of white tarps, my heart dropped into the arms of my tumor. There, dressed in the exact same head-to-toe black outfit she’d complimented on me, was Dr. Harrington.
I wanted to lunge forward to thank her or hug her or something. Climb into her canvas bag, cuddle up between the produce for the ride back to her apartment, where we’d cook dinner together and talk about tumors. Drink wine, laugh off fear, and take turns calling each other strong women for the sake of being women in the first place.
But she wasn’t my friend—she was my doctor. And she was just trying to enjoy the farmer’s market. I was happy to see her again, even if it was just for a moment.
Yesterday, you told me I had cancer. And today you’re just out here enjoying your life?
I smiled.
#
“They should be taking you down there very soon,” the nurse said.
An hour ago, I was teeming with nervous energy. Bouncing around my hospital bed and puffing out the oversized lavender sleeves of my paper gown to make my parents laugh. Now, I was sitting. Tired from doing nothing. Exhausted by existence.
Another hour passed in a different waiting room. But I was alone this time. No parents trying to assure me everything was going to be ok. I passed the hour sweating and shivering under my blankets, wishing I’d been able to have a full meal prior to surgery. My head bobbed in and out of where I was.
I want scrambled eggs. And to be able to keep my left ovary.
The surgical team greeted me at the door with masked mouths and smiling eyes.
“Do you know what surgery you’re having today?” one of the blue masks wobbled.
I didn’t know. “I’m having a laparoscopic procedure? Or maybe a…removing the whole ovary if the uh…tumor is stuck?”
“That’s right,” my gynecological oncologist cooed from the corner.
“Wait, they didn’t put in an IV yet?” the nurse asked me.
“No.”
She sighed, and I felt like a burden to her day.
“Do you have an arm preference?”
I turned my stiff neck to see my bruised left arm. Drained from blood work. Pinpricks from hormone tests, tumor markers, and accidental extra vials when the lab technician apologized for having an off day. My skin was taut and aching, sewn shut by the volume of needles going in and out for months.
“Right,” I replied.
She snapped the skin over my prominent vein and gave it a shot. Nothing. Again. Three times. She offered me sad eyebrows and a tiny apology buried under the frustration of my stubborn vein.
“You’re too cold. Here,” she tucked my arm under the covers close to my chest, “this should warm it up.”
The other nurses asked me questions about my current and future plans.
When I revealed that I was teaching environmental classes outdoors, they clapped their gloves together: “Oh, that must be the greatest job ever!”
Another set of tears came forward. “I actually really hate it,” I admitted.
They said nothing. It was not the response they were looking for. The thought of having to go back made me want to stay in my hospital bed for the remaining months of the job. More appointments, more surgeries, more pain.
Hey, if I have cancer, at least I’m allowed to leave that job.
I wanted to sit up. To let the tears stream down my cheeks, but the hand over my chest took notice of my heartbeat. Slowing, steady. A rhythm I hadn’t cared about this whole time.
I guided the hand down to my belly button and circled the perimeter for a few seconds. It was already a scar. Soon, I would have a scar within a scar.
“Alright, here comes the anesthesia. See you in the recovery room.”
Goodbye, ovary. Sorry you never got to do anything.
#
An hour after the surgery, a nurse finally told me the results: the tumor was removed with a few small incisions, and they took my left ovary and fallopian tube with it. The tumor was benign.
Two hours after the surgery, the young resident on the surgical team told me that the tumor type did not explain my loss of periods. She encouraged me to follow up with my gynecologist and left.
Three hours after the surgery, I rolled over to eat, and each of my organs followed at different times, stacking themselves like heavy reams of paper. I ate so much food that I felt nauseated for three days.
Four hours after the surgery, my boss texted me and asked when I would be back at work. I wrote an email telling her I was quitting. It’s still in my Drafts folder.
Five hours after the surgery, I crawled into the hotel bed and listened to my phone buzz as messages poured in from friends and family. They all said the same thing: “I’m so glad to hear everything went well.”
Six hours after the surgery, I learned that my mother had told everyone that the surgery was the best-case scenario. Funny: in my best-case scenario, I’d still have my left ovary.
Seven hours after the surgery, I cried myself to sleep. Not because of the sharp and unusual pain. Or because months of waiting and worrying were finally over. Or even because it was the end of my brief vacation from my work. It was because I had finally admitted to myself the dark and horrible truth I’d been suppressing the entire time: I wanted it to be cancer.
#
The final lab results came in the mail between summer camps a month later. I’d gone back to work, fighting every instinct to run away somewhere quiet to heal. To find a space much like my own midsection: empty and unlikely to have any children.
Holding that letter brought to mind the same sentiment as battling with middle schoolers over putting on proper footwear for canoeing: why bother?
I’d tried and failed to schedule follow-ups with Dr. Harrington to find out what was still causing the loss of my periods. She was booked three months out. I asked the oncologist for a referral and never got one. After all, my case was no longer immediate. Why bother?
My boss asked me how I was doing every day. And every day, she expected my situation to change. I was tired of being a broken record. She came to expect my dullness, poor attitude, and apathy. Why bother?
The letter could not have been more formal. The language was firm and full of medical jargon I’d have to research.
When I read it, I couldn’t control my laughter. Phrases like “received package labeled ‘ovary’ today” just hit me in this dark, comedic soft spot.
My nearby coworker was startled at first, but she laughed alongside me as I read bits out loud.
I learned that the tumor, a mature teratoma, had been with me since the first stage of development in the womb. It was mostly comprised of adipose tissue and hair.
Ew.
“You know,” the coworker said, pointing to her navel, “because they pulled the tumor out of there, it’s kind of like you got your wish; it’s like you actually have endless belly buttons.”
#
The whiteboard in the common space bore a new message: Check out our mural in the storage room! I finished painting our bricks.
I followed the scent of fresh paint across the hallway and through the heavy doors of the storage room. Each coworker had a brick containing their name and a phrase to encapsulate their year here. Under the fluorescent light of the far wall, the wet bricks glistened with inside jokes, pet names, and jargon from our year living at the center together.
My brick was not an inside joke. Maybe a half-joke. A too-soon chuckling at my own expense. A comical nod to the defining circumstances of a year I lost to the part of myself I never knew I had. A benign statement.
The tumor did not explain my lack of periods. Or my digestive problems. Or even my bushy eyebrows and tendency to make bad puns. In removing one problem, all I’d done was find another.
I rubbed the largest of my surgery scars between thoughts—the one beginning in my belly button. It was the first time I’d touched the area since surgery. I knew the tumor was gone, and yet, I could swear I still felt a pulse.
The brick was dry. My full name was in neat capital letters. And underneath, it read: had endless belly buttons.
Photo by Josiah Rock on Unsplash