Act 2: Live Like You Are Dying

Rewind about 2 years.  Towards the end of sophomore year, I noticed a small bump, under the skin, where my leg met my hip.  “Cancer!” I gasped. I knew it. I knew it was a tumor.  I immediately thought of a host of other symptoms I was experiencing, and now, a bump.  Mystery bumps are never good. Never.  I knew this, thanks to a little website called WebMD.  I definitely frequent this website more than any human should, 99% of the time for a feature called The Symptom Checker.  I love the Symptom Checker, to an unhealthy degree (ha).  It’s a little figure of a person, and you click on the body part that is troubling you, and it asks you questions about the symptoms, what you’ve been doing beforehand, how it acts up, etc. and then gives you a list of potential conditions.  Every time I have used it, I have been able to diagnose myself with a rare, typically fatal, disease.  Really, it’s a miracle I’m still alive.

When I found The Bump, I immediately logged onto the Symptom Checker, and determined that I probably had ovarian cancer.  Well, I should probably go to the doctor, I thought with a heavy heart, give him the news and get whatever treatment can prolong what’s left of my time here on earth.

I went to the campus health center, ready to face my own mortality.  “Well, let’s take a look,” said the jovial doctor. Poor guy, I thought, trying to be cheerful when he knows I’m dying.  “Hmm, it looks like a fluid filled cyst here,” he said, poking and prodding away.  “We’ll do a blood test to make sure there’s no infection. Put a warm compress on it, and if it gets any worse come back.”

“What?” I sat up indignantly. “That’s it?  But, it’s, a Bump!” “Well, we can drain it,” the doctor said, “but they usually just fill back up.”  “Oh,” I said, a little less certain of my self diagnosis.  “But I’m also bloated and having stomach trouble!” I said. “Stop eating so much cheese,” the doctor said.  “I’ve seen you in the cafeteria, no one is able to properly digest that much.” “Oh, right,” I said sheepishly. “Less cheese?” I thought privately. “Please, that’s not even worth getting rid of real cancer, let alone fake.”

So I let The Bump be. We co-existed in a symbiotic relationship, like hippos and those birds that sit on them.  I let him live, and he kept me company.  I named him Charlie, talked to him on long car rides.  It was beautiful.

Then Charlie had to go and ruin everything.