Coming Out
I might have a little bit of cancer.
I came out as a person with cancer yesterday. I called my mom, my sister, and my three sons and told them what’s been going on.
“I have a little bit of cancer,” I whispered through the phone to my sister as if I was passing along gossip after a dinner party.
If I whisper the words, I reason, it’ll make the disease less bad and possibly even make it go away altogether.
“What do you mean?” says my sister, who’s not buying it.
“Well, I might have cancer.”
I can’t commit to it. It’s embarrassing. I shouldn’t have called.
“Hold on, let me go into another room. I can’t hear you.”
“Did I say cancer?” I say when she’s back. “What I meant was cancer-ish or cancer-like. Anyway, I’m having surgery.”
The fact is, no amount of whispering will change the diagnosis. It’s final and certain, and there’s no getting away from that. I do have the disease. The cancer cells are in me at this very moment seeking out other cells to metastasize and corrupt.
I tried speaking in more confident tones when I called my mother, but it was similarly fraught. She has a type of radar that gives her the ability to hone in on the exact most-worrisome detail.
“I bet this is extra upsetting because it affects your manhood,” she said with typical precision.
It’s awkward enough to hear one’s own 85-year-old mother use the word “manhood” as if she were a cast member in a 1970s porno movie, but it’s downright paralyzing to hear her use the term in reference to my very own… manhood.
The issue, of course, is that she’s not wrong. This is indeed one of the most concerning details about this whole prostate situation. Thanks for pointing that out Mom.
To show that I’ve 100 percent most-definitely thought all this through, and that I’m in no way embarrassed or flustered by this line of inquiry, I rattle off facts to her like an armchair urologist.
There’s a 30% chance I will have erectile disfunction after the surgery. Even if I fall in the 70% of guys who do not experience ED, it’ll still take many months before I see very much action. This being said, there are pills and pumps. The industry for functioning manhoods is robust, even if the general state of American men’s boners is relatively dysfunctional. Plus, I’m young, healthy, and vegan (look the last one up).
“Honestly, I’m far more concerned with potential leaking,” I said regrettably.
“Well that just means you’ll have to wear adult diapers,” she said. “Just tell the people at the drugstore that they’re for your aging father. No one will know.”
“I should get going,” I whispered.
I called the kids after that and they took it in stride, but it became clear that this whole cancer situation is starting to gel into two distinct camps: the medical, biological, surgery camp, and the mental, emotional camp.
The surgery is not yet scheduled but I’ve decided to have it. A radical prostectomy is the removal of the organ entirely. It’s a routine surgery at this point, and I understand the risks. There’s physical exercises to do to prepare such as kegels and other pelvic floor exercises. I’m in control, at least up until the operating table. Post op, it’ll be a journey, but there will be drugs.
Things aren’t as clear cut in the metal-emotional camp. I go through a daily grappling match in which I either wrestle my anxiety and self pity to the floor, or it pins me.
To be fair, the days are not all sadness and fear. Now that I’m coming out as a person with cancer, I see clearly that there are people in my life who care for me. I understand that life is short. Waking up to the small slow beauty of living is a gift. In some weird way this diagnosis might propel me toward what’s most important, and that’s worth saying aloud.