out out

While flossing this morning, I discovered a black spot no more than a millimeter in diameter adjacent to my left molar. Upon closer examination, it appeared to be a pair of contiguous dots, as if someone took a thin black Sharpie and left two impressions on the inside of my cheek. I scratched it, attempting to dislodge any foreign pieces adhering to the skin's surface. But it was inside the skin.

I’m scared. Out of my wits.

People don't usually get moles inside their mouth. What I have may be the symptom of mucosal melanoma, a type of oral cancer. The survival rates are estimated at 19-percent, most do not live more than five years, and the treatments (radiation, surgery, etc.) are often disfiguring. The prospect of disfigurement really ups the ante, especially for the super-vain such as myself. This terror is exacerbated by those stomach-churning online images showing the advanced stages of this disease, lesions ravaging the mouth and face.

I don’t want to have this. And, the stats work in my favor: melanoma of the mouth is rare in general, and even less common in well-nourished women under 40. More likely, it is an amalgam tattoo, an innocuous stain that occurs as a result of dental work—and I have undergone extensive root-canal crowning in that very area during the previous six months.

Still, the stats don’t rule out the possibility. I’ve always maintained a doctrine of Chiik Exceptionalism, often using it as an excuse to exempt myself of rules and responsibilities of the common folk. By the same rationale, I may be one of the unfortunate outliers during those few instances where one would do well to be in the middle of the medical norm curve. I think about the excess boozing from the previous night. And I think about the pack of Parliaments in my handbag, reserves for when I get the occasional urge. And what may at the outset pose an inconsequential risk, a combination of the two vices increases the danger 38-fold—it may just be enough to turn the inconsequential consequential.

Hypochondriacs develop real illnesses, too. I’ve endured countless sleepless nights and imposed upon good friends over scenarios of Japanese encephalitis, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, flesh-eating bacteria, and all sexually transmitted viruses that begin with the letter “H.” Finally, there is the big “C”—Cancer. Of the stomach. Colon. Cervix. Breast. Esophagus. Lymph nodes. Brain. Skin. Fear: it is like cancer, metastasizing uncontrolled throughout vital areas of the mind and body. I want neither these diseases nor the fear, but I want someone to assure me with absolute certainty that I am free from it.

I don’t want to die.

I encountered my initial crisis at the age of ten in the darkened dome of Hayden Planetarium. This was on a play date with Sonja Yovik. I stared at the display of lights—stars, planets, galaxies—marveling over celestial time, the beginning which has no beginning and the end which has no end. I thought about the blackness that extends infinitely at either end of my life. A blip. And then nonexistence for eternity.

Sonja and Mr. Yovik were concerned but did not understand. I could not fully express my terror then. It seems ludicrous that a child of ten should fret about dying. But really, when is an appropriate time? I fell into despondency for many months following. At night, I would curl up in mama’s bed or in a sleeping bag on my sister’s rug, eyes opened in the dark room, unable to sleep, until early morning exhaustion would mercifully overtake me. Mama’s words provided little comfort—death was nothing to fear, a natural and, perhaps, even welcome process that will happen a long ways away. She was probably the smartest person I knew but how could she possible know it with certainty? My sister said it was painless, like sleeping. Forever. Leeza and Vanessa, my best friends, told me to cut it out because I was getting all creepy with this death stuff.

And so, I managed to shove my anxieties into a trunk and left it in the attic. But like Rochester’s syphilitic first wife, the anxieties still reappear at inopportune moments, my brain relapses back into incurable madness. The moment could be small—deathbed scenes in even the silliest movies could induce a break of cold sweat and loss of bladder control. This is doubly so when I'm confronted with topics of astrophysics, geological time, climatology, or full-scale extinction. And of course, when it comes to issues relating to disease, magnify that ten-fold.

It was this very issue that catalyzed the second major crisis during my early 20s. After living together for a little over a year, Omar decided to tell me he had every STD he could think of: herpes, hepatitis, HIV, HPV, syphilis, etc. Without any grounds for suspicion, he did this out of fear that I was cheating on him—in effect, using this ploy as a psychological chastity belt. Is there anything that cools the ardor more than incurable life-threatening STDs?

Even at the outset, I scarcely believed his claims. The man wouldn’t know sarcoma from a sebaceous cyst, let alone get his medical facts straight. Even so, there is no certainty. Once the idea is introduced, the only thing that you can do is try to rule it out. The early onset of many of these diseases are general (flu-like symptoms, diarrhea, skin abnormalities, disruption of the vaginal flora) and it takes time to test with any acceptable level of certainty. For some people it could take anywhere from 4-to-12 weeks to develop antibodies to the viruses. What this added up to was three months of psychological torture, of checking the CDC and of reprocessing every statistical probability. But the most unspeakable part of this was that inescapable feeling of ruin. I was ruined. I allowed this man to rob me of all that my family and friends bestowed upon me—life and love.

It took me more than five years to get my life back. And yet, one never fully recovers because those neural pathways have already been set, extensively trod, and deeply grooved. Just a little bit could fire off the anxiety circuitry, to throw me back into frantic grappling with all the epidemiological what-ifs. And all the infinite variants. Innocuous symptoms later resurface as something sinister. Is it esophageal cancer or a sore throat? Is it Kaposi sarcoma or eczema? Is it ocular herpes or did I leave my contacts in too long? Is it colon cancer or did I eat some bad curry tonkatsu? It is cervical cancer or bacterial vaginosis? Is it genital warts or a sebaceous cyst? Is it pulmonary edema or am I just out of shape? Is it mucosal melanoma or tattoo from dental work?

Before going to bed, I checked the black spots in my mouth only to discover that they fell away, as if by a miracle. I felt a rush of relief, thanking my deceased grandmother and father for answering my pleas for protection against ill-fortune. And still, there are other things. This dry red patch on my arm, for example, has me thinking about squamous cell carcinoma…

I can hear the dialog from Hannah & Her Sisters in my head:

Mickey: Do you realize what a thread we're hanging by?

Gail: You're off the hook. Celebrate!

Mickey: Can you understand how meaningless everything is? Our lives, the show, the whole world.

Gail: But you're not dying.

Mickey: I'm not now. When I ran out of the hospital, I was so thrilled. I'm running down the street and then it hit me. So I'm not gonna go today, not tomorrow...but eventually I'm going to.

Gail: You're realizing this now?

Mickey: I know it all the time, but stick it in the back of my mind.

And I think about the way that Mickey Sachs was able to resolve his terror:

I went into a movie. Didn't know what was playing. I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and be logical and put the world back into rational perspective. I went up to the balcony and I sat down.

The movie was one I'd seen many times in my life, since I was a kid, and I always loved it. I'm watching the screen and I started getting hooked on the film. And I started to feel: How can you think of killing yourself? Isn't it stupid? Look at all the people on-screen. They're funny, and what if the worst is true? There's no God, you only go around once, that's it. Don't you want to be part of the experience? It's not all a drag.

And I'm thinking: I should stop ruining my life searching for answers and just enjoy it while it lasts. And after, who knows? Maybe there is something. I know "maybe" is a slim reed to hang your life on but that's the best we have. And then I started to sit back and I actually began to enjoy myself.

You know, dear reader, I never really loved the Marx Brothers (and yes, I'm aware that it's beside the point). I wish, I wish, I could find a film that could bring me the insight to stop torturing myself with this madness--to stop worrying and enjoy all that I do have. Innocence. Still, I can't help but feel that the consolation, the rationalization of our futility, feels a little bit too thin.