Cancer Schmancer (26 page)

When I got an offer to do a commercial, my first “real” job since the cancer, it seemed simple enough and I decided to accept. I thought it would be a good reentry to the biz.

In the commercial I’m a celebrity at a photo shoot talking about my new handheld digital organizer, and I thought it might 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 221

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be fun to include Esther in the spot. So I brought my girl and pow-wowed with the producers, the agency people, and the director, Larry, whom I’d worked with before.

I had an idea that it would be great eye candy if I kept changing throughout the thirty-second spot. I’m known for my fashion sense and I thought it supported the celebrity photo shoot concept. So Shawn-Holly, who’d costumed The Nanny for years, spread out our selections. Old habits die hard, I guess. All those years producing The Nanny had trained me to think on my feet, and this time was no different. They bought my concept hook, line, and sinker. I’d change three times and include little Esther in the commercial. I remember asking the prop man to glue the teacup to the saucer because each time it was handed over on camera, it rattled. Always a stickler for details, I also requested a lipstick print be made on the edge of the cup for realism. Of course, I wanted someone else to make the lip print since there was no way I was going to screw up the beautiful lip job my makeup man Gregory had done.

It all went like clockwork. Esther, looking adorable, appeared at the top of the spot before I passed her off to an actor playing my assistant. I felt like a real backstage mother pushing her into the limelight to follow in the paw prints of her older, dead brother. But hey, this was my life and she better get used to it. Faye, who also did my hair on The Nanny, combed me and Esther out beautifully as Elaine watched the monitors along with the agency executives.

That same day I shot a public service announcement for the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation, sans Esther, which also went very well. I rewrote the copy (of course) to express in greater detail how urgent it is to take the necessary tests to diagnose cancer at its early stages. I gave the Web site for women’s cancer: www.wcn.org. It was poetic shooting the two jobs back to back, because each represented a huge factor in my life: my career and my cancer.

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And so it went. My life was taking on a new shape, piece by piece, little by little. I had my health back, I was beginning to work again, and the dog, especially the dog, made a world of difference. It broke my heart the day I had to get Esther fixed. Bob Barker always ends The Price Is Right by telling his audience to

“get your pets spayed or neutered,” and I figured he must know best. So we brought Esther to get the very same surgery I had. I hated to put her through it, even though we were told it was better for her long-term overall health.

Would the change throw off her hormones? Would she go into a surgical menopause? The vet said no on all fronts. But do they really know? I wondered. In the end I guess you gotta trust someone, so we had it done. The vet said after about a week she’d be completely her old self, but it really took several weeks.

Sound familiar?

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One Year Later

J u n e 2 0 0 1

it had been explained to me by my surgeon that when you’ve been diagnosed and treated for cancer, you can’t consider yourself cured or out of the woods until you’ve had five years of nonrecurrence. So with each month that passed and each good report, my chances of recurrence diminished as the odds began to stack more and more in my favor.

It was daunting, knowing I’d have to be tested by the surgeon every three months for the first two years and then every six months for three years after that. I couldn’t believe I’d have to continue returning to that hospital for the next five years!

But I’d been told over and over again that consistency of follow-up is the most essential factor in long-term recovery. Doctor #9

couldn’t stress enough the importance: “Women who find themselves too busy to do their follow-up are basically giving up, since they’ve left the race when it’s only been half run.”

John, bless his heart, had come with me to every post-op checkup. I felt strong and healthy, but as each three-month cycle came to an end I worried the surgeon might say something I didn’t want to hear. Each hospital visit was a vivid reminder of the 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 224

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horror of it all. But the one-year checkup had greater significance.

At the one-year point, they do a CT (pronounced “cat”) scan and see exactly what’s going on inside. This is the time when they look for new growths.

John and I entered the hospital just as we had so many times in the past year. Immediately, I began to feel clammy and weak.

Am I still cancer-free? John stayed with me in the examining room, too. My surgeon performed the physical exam. I’d thought I’d be taking the scan that same day, but no mention was made of it until me and my big mouth brought it up. Then Doctor #9 remembered it was my one-year anniversary. Of course, that a whole year had passed since my cancer surgery couldn’t have had the same resonance for her as for me.

I didn’t even know what a CT scan was, exactly, so she explained that the letters stood for “computerized tomography”

and that the machine would take a series of X rays showing thin slices of my body from front to back, starting at my thigh and going up my neck.

“Why do they have to go all the way up to the neck?” I asked.

“Because sometimes recurrence can show up in the lungs,”

she answered. Well, if that didn’t make me nauseous.

The next morning, I made an appointment with the nurse but was very apprehensive. I worried about having to take more X rays.

I mean, maybe the effects of all those X rays would somehow ac-cumulate and ignite any cancer cells that might be lying dormant.

What if I’d never even brought up the scan? Was this absolutely necessary?

When I spoke to my friend Melinda, she told me she’d never had to have a CT scan and had just celebrated her second year of postsurgery nonrecurrence. So of course, I called Doctor #9’s nurse and questioned her about all this. I’m sure doctors and nurses hate when patients know each other and compare notes, 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 225

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but who cares? I wanted to know why I needed a CT scan and Melinda didn’t.

“Everyone’s different,” I was told. “You don’t have to take it this week if you don’t want to, but you will have to take it,” the nurse reasoned. No point in postponing, I figured, and grudgingly kept the appointment.

I’ve heard there’s a lot of controversy about these CT scans.

Healthy people plunk down a lot of cash just to take a look-see around. Everyone’s heard the story of the guy who felt perfectly fine and took a CT scan that detected a spot on his liver: an early detection that saved his life. But Elaine’s doctor told her there can be dozens of cysts and nodes and lumps throughout our bodies, most of which are totally benign. “Why look for trouble?” was his philosophy.

Rachel had a CT done on her lungs. She’s a mother of two, and after years of smoking she thought she’d sleep better knowing her lungs were clean. It was a relief to learn they were. Who knows whether it’s a good preventive measure or just “looking for trouble”? I was about to find out for myself.

The next day when John and I arrived, a technician asked me to drink something that helps enhance the CT images. I got to mix it with the beverage of my choice and chose iced tea, downing two large glasses full. Next, I was led to an area where I changed into a hospital gown. Sue, a nurse who doesn’t normally work in this area, had been called down to help out. After several unsuccessful attempts, she finally managed to put an I.V. into the vein in my hand.

Even though John thought I was overreacting, it hurt like hell.

Then the nurse disappeared and a big, Nordic-looking, very pretty technician led me over to the CT scan machine. John was able to sit behind glass in a separate room and watch. The technician hooked up my I.V. to a dye, which hurt going into my veins.

When she reduced the pressure the pain receded.

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The first thing she said was, “Why did they put the I.V. in your hand?” As if I knew why.

“What’s the matter? Is that bad?” I questioned nervously.

“Well, they usually do the top of the hand with old people, but I don’t know why she’d do this to you.” Not exactly confidence-building words to hear as you’re placed in a huge contraption and pumped full of a strange dye. “Who did this?”

she wondered.

“Sue, it was Sue!” I accused. “Does it make any difference?” I continued, wanting in that moment to stab Sue.

“It’s just that your arms need to be out of the way, and with the I.V. in your hand it’s harder to lift your arms over your head,”

the Nordic nurse replied.

“Stupid Sue,” I muttered as the technician disappeared behind the glass. And the scan began! Aside from a slight nervous-ness caused by having a large instrument looming over you, the scan itself is nothing with nothing. Even less so if you’re fortunate enough not to get Sue.

By the time it was over and I began to get dressed, I noticed that the hand that had been repeatedly jabbed by Sue was already swollen and turning black and blue. So I marched myself back into the technician’s area, where the Nordic nurse was already kibitzing with one of the doctors. As I approached, flailing my purple, swollen hand, I shouted, “Sue, Sue!”

“Oh, we don’t like to use that word around here,” the doctor replied, getting nervous. But the pretty Nordic nurse explained that Sue was the gal who’d inserted the I.V., and together she and the doctor assured me that although my hand would stay quite ugly for several days, eventually the bruising would fade.

“Why me, Lord?” I whimpered, heading for the nearest antiques store to appease my aggravation.

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Well, that was on Thursday, and it wasn’t until Tuesday that Wanda, my surgeon’s nurse, called with the test results.

“I have good news and not-so-good news,” she said, “but we don’t really think it’s anything bad and we’re not worried, or Doctor #9 would have called you herself.”

Had she just said what I thought she said? I looked over at John, who knew something was up, and meekly replied, “Is something wrong, did something show up on the CT scan?”

“Your abdomen is completely clean,” Wanda assured, “and that’s very important, because that’s the first and most likely area spread would occur.”

I gulped. “So what’s the not-so-good part?” I asked, as my voice weakened and John ran to pick up an extension.

“They found a spot on your lung,” she said, forthright and direct as always (they must take a class for that). She then quickly added, “But nothing about the spot looks suspicious in any way.

Many people have small growths on their lungs from birth, and they’re not threatening at all. It’s smooth like a river rock that has been there for many years, and doesn’t look anything like cancer, which is jagged with tentacles. Still, considering your recent history, Doctor #9 thinks we should do a PET scan just to be sure.”

She assured me that if I hadn’t been a recovering cancer patient, they’d never have pursued this further.

I understood the words she was saying, but my heart sank as my fears rose. “Wait a minute, what did the CT scan do, and what the hell is a PET scan for?” I asked. And why do they all sound like do-mesticated animals?

Wanda was ready with all the answers: “The CT scan detects a growth; a PET scan determines whether or not it’s malignant. The-oretically, any malignancies you have will grab at sugar, so they inject you with a radioactive sugar fluid that appears as highlights in 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 228

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the PET scan pictures.” Uh-huh. It was all so futuristic I couldn’t even believe what I was hearing.

“Well, why didn’t this spot show up on those stupid chest X rays I took before my surgery?” I questioned.

“Because it’s hidden behind a bone,” she said matter-of-factly.

“It wouldn’t have been visible with a simple chest X ray. An appointment for a PET scan should be set as soon as possible. Call Doctor #9’s scheduling nurse in the morning to confirm,” Wanda instructed.

I hung up the phone so sad and upset. I wasn’t prepared to feel this way again. But in a repeat performance, I immediately began dialing my parents, sister, and friends.

The next morning when I called the gal in my surgeon’s office, she said she was waiting to hear from the people over at Nuclear Medicine and hoping to work something out over the next few weeks.

“Few weeks!” I exclaimed. Here I was, thinking I’d be going in that afternoon or the next day at the very latest. I mean, how do they expect you to get on with your life when you know you’ve got a phantom spot on your lung? “Gimme the number, let me talk to them,” I said, offering to lend a helping hand.

When I called, I got a guy named Tom on the phone who said the department was really backed up with appointments. But when I told him I’d had uterine cancer and that my CT scan showed a spot on my lung, my voice began quivering out of control. He asked how late I could come in that same day and I said, “Whenever you say, Tom.”

Then he asked if I’d eaten, and I said no. I knew not to eat or drink anything until I found out when my test was going to be and what restrictions it might require. He said he’d see what he could do and call me right back.

Within minutes he phoned back and said they’d make me the last appointment of the day. I blessed him and thanked him pro-9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 229

One Year Later