What you don't know

When I was pregnant with my son, I worked at a commercial television station where my job was screening old movies and editing the clips into teasers. At eight months pregnant, an intense (and stupid) woman at the station stopped me in the hall and said, “I’m so worried about you, working around this radiation all day. You do know it could harm your unborn child.”
         I was young, impressionable and freaked out. I immediately sought counsel from the gray-haired master engineer.
         “Well,” he said, looking at my belly, “it’s a little late to worry about that, don’t you think?”
         Things worked out. My son Robert was the biggest, healthiest newborn in the hospital. He didn’t suffer effects from radiation, but perhaps all that in utero movie watching had its effect. His creativity sprouted at an early age. When he was four years old, he turned to me and said, “Maybe, we’re just a long, long movie to God.”
         I thought it profound.
         So here’s the movie of one miniscule scurrying human on this planet today:
         The sun is shining. It’s a glorious day in Portland. My hair’s clipped short. I feel happy, lighter than air, like a beach ball dancing on water. The phone rings. It’s the scheduler for the liver biopsy. They’re giving me a time. I knew they’d call; it’s no surprise. I agree to Thursday, listen to the pre-opt instructions. Hang up. And then sink like someone punctured me with a nine-penny nail. I make my way across the room, find my green couch and lay flat. I can’t get up.

         Logically, I should get up and do something. Because we all know action is what heroes do. Heroes are not passive. I tell my scriptwriting students this all the time. We don’t want to watch victims on the screen. We won’t tolerate it. Things shouldn’t just happen to your hero; your hero must take charge, seize control of situations and turn them around.
         In real life, that story option is not always available.
         The first day we met my oncologist, Dr. Jacqueline Vuky, Ron asked her at the end of the appointment how a patient should handle the diagnoses mentally, explaining my tendency to worry.
         Dr. Vuky was quiet, then said, “I believe each patient needs to take time to grieve in her own way.” She went on with more carefully chosen, sensitive words, but what resonated with me was being given permission to feel whatever it was I was feeling.
         I shared some of my general malaise about the biopsy with Robert when he called to touch base today.
         “I’m thinking I like that old saying ‘what you don’t know can’t kill you,’” I said.
         “No, I don’t agree with that. You want to know.”
         “Yeah, I was just floating that idea out there.”
         We were quiet for a while.
         “Well, hey, maybe you want to get some medical marijuana,” he said.
         We laughed and for some reason I felt better.