You Wanna Piece Of Me?

Lump is not feeling the love. EVERYONE is out to get him. Lump is not being paranoid here, as everyone is out to get him. Today we went for a second biopsy. Lump started getting all suspicious, raising his little Lump eyebrows. Lump kept asking me “why do they want another biopsy?”

Then Lump went all Cagney on me, “Youse guys already took some chunks. Now dese mooks want more??? Nertz! “ Lump speaks fluent Bowery. “G’wan, take your best shot at me. In the end, you’ll be the one crying.”

We go to Cancerland at 7 am because of the early bird. “You know, the early bird gets da works, blood works I sez. And don’t forget to tell them we need results before the needle hits my neck”, shouts Lump in the waiting room. I can’t take him anywhere.

I go back about 10:20: and we wait until 10:45. Put on this gown and come down the hall. Lump smirks. “Now they got youse wearing dresses!” We walk down the hall, looking in every room. Someone in uniform comes up behind me. Just down the hall, at the end.

The nurse says put your clothes on the chair and get on the slab. Hmmm, er…..table, she quickly corrects herself, perhaps a bit too quick. She goes out of the room to bring in the student from the study group. They are collecting this biopsy to study my genomes. Yes, Lump, they are studying YOUR genomes too. I felt it was least I could do, what with them hopefully saving my life and all. Lump does not share my dedication to science.

“Bunch of edjumacated know it all’s. They just wanna piece of me.”

And he is right. The Doctor comes in. He patiently explains he will be taking 6 samples today, 4 for the study group, and two for further confirmation.

Lump is whispering again. “Or was it for his private collection? Guy could be a regular Dexter”, Lump conspiratorially confides to me. You see, only I can hear Lump, his cries in the middle of the night, his singing in the shower, his tiny little Lump voice when it catches in my throat, somehow getting through the roar of the ocean in my ears. He’s a real hummingbird in a hurricane.

There seems to be a problem. They can’t find the right size needle. The nurse says ‘I looked everywhere’. She says the last patient must have used the last one this morning. Lump jokes that “they are now searching through biohazards to dust it off. Remember in the old days”, he says. “When they tried to give youse a shot, and the needle was dull. Yeah back in the day when they didn’t use needles only once. When the womenfolk would wash out the used condoms and the old man would use it again the next time. It was Approved by the Vatican. You had to believe just for it to work.” A regular Rodney Dangerfield this Lump is.

Crisis averted. Doctor comes back in with a shiny new package. I had been worried that he would have to use too small of a needle, which for the biopsy might be like trying to empty a giant bowl with a baby teaspoon. ‘This needle is the right size of needle for neck procedures’, he assures me. Lump grins, and says “I feel much better knowing that Doc. Always good to have the right tool for the job.”

The Doctor explains everything in detail. ‘I’m going to use this fancy needle thingamajig, and we’re going to go deep. Deeper than you’ve ever been Laddie. It will feel like a prick at first”…Lump says that’s what I tell them too. ‘Oh, did you feel that? I better add more freezing. Can you hear the needle “pop”? That’s me taking a sample.’ Student says it’s for The Genome Project. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t tell you’re gonna get fat or die or anything.’

I resume breathing. Lump laughs. The Doc has me sign the form giving my consent to the biopsy procedure. We don’t want Lump going all legal.

‘These students I say’ as I remember the time I went to the proctologist, and he had a student doctor, ‘Christ even I had a student Doctor in those days! You’re going to feel a little pressure, hey Student Doctor, get your fingers in this. Don’t be afraid. Smells like?……Proctologist humour. Soon the Doctor and his student had fingers in me, and next up was the camera crew. Remember this was the time after analog, when everyone was going digital.’ I shudder to think of how invasive analog must have been.

I remember going to one Proctologist who was Murray Pezim’s son. The Pez! He’s feeling around in there.

“ Is it ok Doctor? Am I going to live?”

‘Oh sorry, sometimes I get so caught up in my work that I just forget the time.’

Lump says enough with the Memory Lane. Let’s get on with it. The Doctor starts popping the needle. ‘That’s the first one. Here comes the second one. Oh, that one is a bit necrotic, let’s try again.’

Before you know it we were all the way up to six. ‘Ok, one more for my private collection.’

Did I hear that correctly? Poor Lump is losing more than his patience here. Doc says ‘I haven’t lost a patient in 23 years.’

Lump says “if you’re so damned smart, why are you still practicing?” Lump says “he’s half the lump he once was, a mere shadow of a lump on the ultrasound.” The student is packing up her genomes, closing the lid on the ice bucket, as I look up to see smoke pouring out of it. ‘Actually it was dry ice’, she confides.

Lump is in shock.

“I give and I give and it’s never enough!”

The Doctor says leave the bandage on for 24 hours.

I gather up my clothes, slip off the gown, and dress awkwardly. I say, ‘can we go now?”

Doctor misses the involuntary plural ‘we’, as I am the only one left in the room.

Lump is slumped in the corner.

“Why I oughta….you wanna piece of me?” Nothing like a mumbling Lump. ‘Sssh, my little lumpling…..let’s go home.’

After all, we have chemo and radiation to look forward to next week.

“Don’t forget,” Lump chortles, “We still have an appointment with the Dentist later today. Maybe she will give you a pull…..”