Routine Exam

In 1972, two days before my 21st birthday - the Thursday before Easter, I had a routine physical. I was home from college for spring break and had promised my mother that I would finally go to the doctor. I told him that I had a minor illness a month or so earlier and that the "townie" doctor who examined me in the college clinic was particularly attentive to my thyroid. After explaining that I had taken thyroid medication for a short while as a younger child, he proceeded to deal with the sinus infection that brought me to the college clinic in the first place.

However, our family doctor was more concerned. He checked my thyroid gland, immediately had me get up, dress, and go straight to the local hospital to take the medication that would allow me to have a thyroid scan the next day, on Good Friday. Our family doctor was a life long friend of my mother's and he called her while I was at the hospital to explain his concern and the urgency for the test.

Mom accompanied me to the hospital on Friday for the scan. My twenty-first birthday was on Saturday. My parents and our doctor insisted that I not return to school on Monday, as planned, but wait until Tuesday when the results would be available.

When the phone rang on Tuesday, I joined the conversation between my mother and doctor on another phone. My mother insisted that I get off, ordered me to get off, and wouldn’t hear anything else but that I get off the phone. Finally, I gulped and spoke straight to the doctor. "I'm twenty-one and I will not give you permission to discuss this with my mother unless I am on the phone." I've always admired the way he paused and then told my mother that he would explain the results to me while she listened, with my permission. He proceeded to tell me that the test showed that I had thyroid cancer, fortunately detected in the earliest stages. I had surgery about a month later and have had no further problems with cancer in thirty-four years.

I do still have to gulp and force myself to take responsibility to speak up occasionally but this moment reminds me of how important it might be.