This morning the Chronicle ran a front page story about a 23 year-old woman named Alicia, a copy editor at the Chronicle who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s the first in a seven-part series. My thoughts go out to her.
I came into The Chronicle building early, at 8 a.m., because it was a Wednesday, deadline day for my department, the Friday section. It was almost 10 o’clock when I grabbed a muffin and some yogurt from the coffee shop downstairs.
I hadn’t had time to take a bite when the phone rang.
For once, I didn’t look at the number. I just assumed it was someone calling me back about a question I had with a story. On deadline, of course.
“Chronicle. This is Alicia.”
“Hi, Alicia, this is Dr. Feldman.”
Gary Feldman is my primary care doctor. I wondered why he was calling. Bad news didn’t even occur to me. I was too busy for bad news. And bad news doesn’t come when you’re at work.
“Oh, hi, Dr. Feldman, how are you?.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. …Listen, we just got your pathology report back from Stanford from your breast biopsy. They’re calling it alveolar soft part sarcoma.”
I froze. I had no idea what that meant. I didn’t even know how to spell it. Things you can’t begin to spell are never good.
Dr. Feldman was still talking, but I couldn’t understand anything, until I heard him say, “… so it’s cause for concern.”
“Wait, wait, hold on. I’m not any kind of medical person, so you’re going to have to explain. We’re talking about cancer, right? Sarcoma is a kind of cancer?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
