House Call

"Gynecology office!"

"Hello, Perky. Is Doctor Lee in?"

"No, I'm sorry, he isn't. May I help you with something?"

"He was supposed to call me an hour ago to discuss treatment options. When will he be in?"

"Let me check." She shuffled around on her desk a bit, clicked through a few computer screens, then chirped, "In about an hour. He's going to want you to come into the office, though. Can you be here in thirty minutes?"

"No, I can't. It'll take me an hour and a half to get there. I'm at my parents'." That information wold have been extremely helpful before I'd driven out there. I resisted the urge to bang the receiver on the countertop and scream, "Hello, you empty-headed twit! Why didn't you tell me that yesterday!?!"

Nurse Perky, of course, was oblivious to my rage. "Well, get here as soon as you can, then. I'll let him know you're coming."

When I arrived at the office, I was ushered to a room. No need to undress this time - it was just a consultation. Dr. Lee rushed in, chart in hand. He looked at me, eyes wide open behind his heavy glasses. He pursed his lips, then took the glasses off and sighed heavily.

"It's worse dan we thought, Mouth. You have three places dat are bad." He showed me a sketch he'd done of my cervix during the last visit. "Dis one and dis one, day not so bad. Dis one, dough," he tapped his pen on some boxes with a big X over them, "dis one cancerous. We need to wemove it. Schedule surgery with Perky on you way out."

So that was it. No explination. I knew where it came from, of course. There are commercials all over television right now talking about cervical cancer caused by a virus, how you can have it and not know it, and now they have a vaccine for it. It's too late for me to be vaccinated, of course. I've already got it. It's already doing it's damage. The surgery is scheduled for mid-February. My appointment for a second opinion is in one week. We'll see how that goes.