\nMy mother likes anything that allows her to see inside herself\u2014mammograms, x-rays, ultrasounds. She collects the results of these procedures and files them according to year and body part. \u201cThis is my brain,\u201d she says, pulling out an x-ray. \u201cThis is my liver, my heart, my spine.\u201d The tests are her proof of good health, proof that she is years away from illness or death. <\/p>\n
My brothers and I find amusement in our mother\u2019s obsession because we don\u2019t want to face the reality of her problem. Last Thanksgiving, the boys drove up from their homes in Boston and D.C, and for almost the entire dinner mom spoke of her recent visit to a renowned gastroenterologist. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t believe what they can diagnose from a simple MRI,\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan they diagnose crazy?\u201d Brian asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cExactly,\u201d Jay said. \u201cDid you ask this hotshot to test your sanity?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease,\u201d my mom said. \u201cMy sanity\u2019s tested every day \u2013 I have to put up with you three, don\u2019t I?\u201d<\/p>\n
But my mother is serious about these tests. She lectures me often about the need to keep on top of illness. She uses words like safeguarding, patrolling, proactive. \u201cGood health is the result of watchfulness,\u201d she says. \u201cAlmost everything has a cure, but only if you catch it early enough.\u201d I have heard her arguments so frequently that the conversations are white noise \u2013 just the mention of a medical term can send me into a deep slumber.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my god\u201d I said while driving her around during one of her tirades. \u201cI\u2019m going to fall asleep at the wheel and kill us both if you don\u2019t stop talking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFine \u2013 go ahead and make jokes, but you\u2019re going to want this information one day,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re young and you take your health for granted. But just wait. When you\u2019re older you\u2019re going to be arthritic or hypertensive or worse! And when that happens, you\u2019re going to be begging me to talk about this stuff. You\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother has absolute faith in the ability of doctors. I tell her that she\u2019s being taken advantage of, that her doctor should be sued for malpractice for all the things he\u2019s allowed, and even advised her to do. \u201cYou have no idea what you\u2019re talking about,\u201d she tells me. \u201cCarl\u2019s a dear friend and he knows what\u2019s best. He\u2019s a doctor.\u201d She says this as if doctors are not born into the world, but burst forth from the earth, fully formed, stethoscope in hand, crying out, \u201cThis is a brain tumor. That is meningitis. Bring me the sick and I shall cure them.\u201d <\/p>\n
Two years ago, I moved out of my mother\u2019s house to get away from her. I mistakenly believed that separate living quarters would distance me from her. Instead, she seems more insistent than ever that we stay close. Not only does she guilt me into visiting on the weekends, but she also calls every day. Most of our conversations involve something medical \u2013 a recent doctor\u2019s visit or a test result she just received. Sometimes she phones just to tell me of all the cancer that exists in the family \u2013 breast, colon, lung. Or she reads me articles on the benefits of the flu shot and on advancements being made on the artificial lung. Since moving out, I have become more adamant in my dislike of doctors and hospitals. I am distrustful not only of my mother\u2019s care, but of everything medical \u2013 of all those white pills with names that no one can pronounce, of blips on computer screens measuring all the blood being pumped to and from a heart. <\/p>\n
I have my own accumulating pile of articles, which includes clippings on the placebo effect, psychosomatic disorders, doctors leaving instruments inside patients or carving their initials into women\u2019s newly enlarged breasts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are absolutely ridiculous,\u201d my mother said when I first showed them to her. \u201cWhere on earth are you getting these? Are you reading the Enquirer?\u201d<\/p>\n
As evidence, I brought her Scientific American, Newsweek, The New Yorker<\/em>. \u201cThese are credible publications,\u201d I told her. <\/p>\n \u201cNonsense,\u201d she said. \u201cThe things people will believe these days.\u201d<\/p>\n My brothers are generally left to themselves, left to drink themselves to liver failure or smoke their way to emphysema. I think my mother sees me as an easy target, or maybe she thinks that my brothers, older and more immersed in their bad habits, are already too far gone. My brothers take after our father who we never saw without a drink, cigar or fork in his hand. \u201cWe\u2019re all gonna die someday,\u201d he used to say. \u201cWhy not enjoy ourselves while we\u2019re here?\u201d It\u2019s a mystery to me how my mother and father ended up together. I can only imagine that once, years before there was a family to worry about, children to keep alive, Mom was a somewhat lighthearted person \u2013 someone prone to bouts of recklessness and spontaneity, someone who saw in my father a sense of abandonment and was drawn to it. How many cases of colic, ear infections and ruptured appendixes did it take to steal all of that away from her? Was it gradual \u2013 boards softening and weakening over the years, the foundation slowly rotting out beneath her? Or was it sudden \u2013 the crash of a wrecking ball and then all that dust where once a building stood? <\/p>\n My father was not exactly careless with us, but he believed in letting kids be independent. Nothing was off limits \u2013 knives and matches were left in plain sight, electrical outlets were exposed and doors kept unlocked. For my father, childproofing the house meant locking up the cigars and liquor so we wouldn\u2019t exhaust his supply. \u201cBuy your own,\u201d he said when my brother, at twelve, asked for a sip of beer. When I was eleven and my brothers were grown, or at least pretending to be grown in order to be out of the house, our father finally left. He left us for someone who was more appreciative of his lifestyle, and less prone to harping on him for all his bad habits that, god forbid, he pass on to his children.<\/p>\n My father was never sick, at least that I can remember. In my mind he was a hulking, robust man, too large to be felled by things as feeble as illness and injury. When my mother speaks of our father \u2013 which she rarely does \u2013 she says taking care of him was worse, by far, than caring for all three of us, even when were young and oblivious and always an inch away from some tragic, gruesome death.<\/p>\n \u201cThat man,\u201d she says. \u201cThe way he ran himself down. It surprised me each and every morning to wake up and find him still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n I still think of him as indestructible, despite my mother\u2019s descriptions and my own distant memories of the drinking and smoking and napping with a cigarette still burning between his fingers. I think of myself as somewhat invincible as well, some imaginary inheritance from my father. So it surprises me to find myself sick with something that I cannot name or dismiss. Illness in my family has always existed as a threat and nothing more, and I know only how to handle this illness, the one that merely promises to emerge and tear our world apart. <\/p>\n When the pain first began, I thought it was indigestion, some heartburn. I took antacids, drank milk and slept most of the night sitting up, propped against pillows, but the pain continued and then worsened. Although I\u2019m scared, I refuse to tell my mother because I can\u2019t bear to hear her diagnoses and suggestions. I\u2019ve been turning down her dinner invitations for three weeks thinking the pain will subside, so when the phone rings this afternoon I\u2019m hesitant to answer. <\/p>\n \u201cAre you avoiding me?\u201d my mother asks when I pick up the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been busy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHave you purposely been busy so that you can avoid me? It\u2019s been weeks. Look, if you don\u2019t come over tonight, I\u2019m coming over there. Is something wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGood. Then are you coming over here or are you going to make me drive on the highway at night \u2013 you know how bad my eyes are.\u201d<\/p>\n When I arrive at the house, I can see the shock in my mother\u2019s face. I have lost more than ten pounds since I last saw her and my skin has turned some terrible shade of gray? <\/p>\n “You’re sick,” my mom says, and I can\u2019t tell if it\u2019s fear or excitement that I hear in her voice.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s just a bug,” I say.<\/p>\n \u201cHow long has this been going on?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot long. A couple weeks maybe? It\u2019s probably nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, it\u2019s something, alright,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m calling Carl.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s seven o\u2019clock on a Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fine. I have his home number.\u201d<\/p>\n Mom calls Carl, and I overhear her making plans for me, recommending an MRI, blood tests, upper and lower GI\u2019s. I have only a vague understanding of what these procedures entail, gleaned from the stories my mother has told me about her own experiences. I know that all of the tests are frightening in their own way. Each one will tell me something dark and foreboding about my body, something that is best left unknown. But what does my mom know about truths best left alone? <\/p>\n \u201cThough I didn\u2019t schedule one,\u201d she says to me after hanging up the phone with Carl, \u201cI think you should really consider an endoscopy. They\u2019re very informative.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re getting ahead of ourselves,\u201d I say. \u201cI\u2019m not sure I even need all these tests.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s best to be on the safe side,\u201d Mom says.<\/p>\n At the doctor\u2019s office the next morning, Carl is cheerful and full of questions about my body.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are lots of things we can do for you,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n He has a list of questions for me concerning my symptoms, and we quickly fall into a pattern of Carl asking, me answering and Mom elaborating.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t even know what I\u2019m feeling,\u201d I say to her after the fourth or fifth question.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, you\u2019re being too brief,\u201d she says. \u201cHow can you expect Carl to help you when you won\u2019t even answer his questions in any detail?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cActually, I think this is a good start,\u201d Carl says, interrupting us both. \u201cI\u2019m going to have a nurse take you to get some x-rays, and your mother and I will see you back here in a few minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n Through the office window I can see Carl studying my x-rays with what I consider to be unusual seriousness. It is a look that I imagine passes over the faces of a flight crew when they first realize the plane is going down.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something terrible,\u201d I say to my mother. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe looks worried.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll doctors look that way \u2013 pensive and in charge \u2013 it\u2019s calming for the patients.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt gives the impression that everything is under control.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs everything under control?\u201d <\/p>\n “Now, I don\u2019t want you to be alarmed,\u201d Carl says when he enters the room and holds the x-ray up to the light. \u201cIt’s a very small mass, nothing to be worried about. Most likely it\u2019s completely benign.\u201d<\/p>\n My mother moves in closer to inspect the x-ray.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s here,\u201d Carl says to her. \u201cDo you see it?\u201d<\/p>\n “Oh yes,” Mom says taking the x-ray from him and turning it around in front of the light. “It’s very obvious, isn’t it?” <\/p>\n They point and nod and say things like minor surgery and biopsy. They throw those words around as if I were not even in the room, as if it were not my body, but somebody else\u2019s, that was going to be split wide open and stripped of essential parts and pieces.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nothing to be worried about.\u201d Carl says, turning to me.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, don\u2019t be worried,\u201d Mom says. \u201cIt\u2019s practically nothing at all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour mom is right \u2013 it\u2019s almost nothing,\u201d Carl says. \u201cWould you like to see what we\u2019re discussing?\u201d He takes the x-ray from my mother and motions for me to look closer. \u201cIt really is so small, hardly noticeable I would say. Can you see the mass we\u2019re talking about? It\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n Carl holds up the x-ray but I see only black and white and shades of gray. There is no mass. There is not even a body for the mass to have grown in. It looks nothing like my liver, my stomach. I want to tell them that they\u2019ve made a mistake, that we\u2019re looking at someone else\u2019s x-rays, the insides of a stranger who, by the look of it, needs to get a hold of herself and decide just what exactly is going on in there.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you having some difficulty seeing it?\u201d Carl asks. \u201cIt\u2019s here. Do you see?\u201d<\/p>\n Slowly, as I look more closely, things begin to take form. Lines and shapes become more distinct, and even the color is changing and looking a little more blue than it did just minutes before, or is it more of a green? I look at it now, and I am surprised that I didn\u2019t notice this before \u2013 it looks not unlike Lousiana. Or no, maybe more like an ocean liner cruising the Pacific.<\/p>\n “Can you see it?” Carl asks again.<\/p>\n Of course I see it. It’s an old man on a porch, smoking a pipe. A figure skater landing a triple salchow. Zebras running roaming the savannah.<\/p>\n “This is your liver,” he says and he points to Senegal. “And this is the malformation,” he says pointing to the bomber taking flight. <\/p>\n “”Do you see it?” my mother asks.<\/p>\n “Of course,” I say. “Of course I see it.” And I do. Everything is becoming clearer to me. My mother likes anything that allows her to see inside herself\u2014mammograms, x-rays, ultrasounds. She collects the results of these procedures and files them according to year and body part. \u201cThis is my brain,\u201d she says, pulling out an x-ray. \u201cThis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[21951],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1950,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/1950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nMelanie Roeder<\/strong> is a graduate of the University of Arizona and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently lives in Chicago where she is an occasional writer and a more frequent hypochondriac.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"