From the first moment
my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from
the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer
seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did
little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known
reason, I started this blog…
One of my fondest
memories as a kid is watching the movie FANTASTIC VOYAGE. In it, a group of
scientists and their ultra-futuristic laser-packing “submarine” are reduced to
cell size and injected into the blood vessels of a world diplomat in order to
destroy a blood clot in his brain.
What would a FANTASTIC
VOYAGE: Breast Cancer look like? I’m going to write a novel here, short chapter
by short chapter and I’m going to include the latest research and I’m going to
imagine the entire story here for your delectation. If you want to start at the
beginning, look left. Scroll down to LABELS. The first one is “A Fantastic
Cancer Voyage”. Click on it. Scroll to the bottom and you will find episode one.
Let me know what you think after you’ve read the whole thing!
Ohloo – Dr. Olubunmi Nwagbara – Ohloo to her friends, if not
her family – held up her hands in surrender, “I’m not Mother Teresa. I’m just a
surgeon…”
“…who has the opportunity to free women everywhere! How can
you not see that?” Machig Rabten was a long-time colleague and had once been a
patient. She was older than she looked. Approaching seventy, and a physician’s
assistant, she’d refused several attempts by friends and family to push her
into med school. She’d wanted to work among people, not wrestle with
bureaucracy. She’d served in Calcutta, Beijing, Lost Angeles, Mexico City and
finally in the Mayo as Ohloo’s confidante and right-hand-woman.
Ohloo shook her head, saying, “I see Kim Lin Ghandi laying
in her bed while cancer eats her body up unchecked. I need the absolute best
team with me while I dive into her bloodstream and operate. That’s all I see.
The rest of the details I’ll leave up to you.”
Machi’s lips twitched then she nodded. “All right. Leave it
to me, Doc. I’ll shoot you a the team list with bios attached with an analysis
of how the skills will interact.” She spun to leave and Ohloo stared after her
a long time before she tapped her computer to life and set into answering her
emails and queries.
It was long dark outside the windows of her seventeenth
story office when she shut off her computer.
The override – possessed by one person – turned it back on
and a simple word document popped up in characteristic Georgia 12 point font.
Ohloo smiled. Machi’s work. There was no intro, no explanation, no frame.
There didn’t need to be.
Subject: Kim Lin Ghandi, world-renowned philosopher and The
Last Hope For World Peace, Catholic-Buddhist-Hindu-Daoist
Dr. Olubunmi Nwagbara
Dr. Isamar Noor, Official clergy and observer
Chief Right Honorable Mister Nnamdi Oko Nwagbara, Prime
Minister of the Commonwealth of West Africa
Dr. Mackenzie Phan, expert in breast cancer theory (a BC
survivor)
Machig Rabten, P.A., breast cancer expert in application of
theory
Dr. Yameri Niazi, specialist in metastatic breast cancer (a
BC survivor)
Alex Benton, chief administrator of Mayo Medical Center
She leaned back in her chair and said out loud, “You want
Benton to be part of the team? What for?” Her earphone blipped. Scowling, she
tapped it and said, “You have my office bugged?”
“Why would I need to do that?” Machi said.
“Because I just asked a question and you called a
millisecond later to tell me the answer.”
“What question did you ask?” Ohloo didn’t say a word. She’d
learned the art of waiting at her father’s knee during his gradual rise from
Paramount Ruler, to Chief, to Ambassador, to African Congress Senator, to the
place he now sat. Eventually Machi, an often-times fiery woman with a
passionate Israeli heritage said, “Fine. Yes. You need Alex. He’s the ‘every
man’.”
“The what?”
“You ever read his bio?”
“No. Should I have?”
“Starts with a public high school, community college,
four-year state university, and then skips to Harvard business management, and
ends as the director of the most recognizable hospital on Earth. He’s what
every man or woman can be if they work hard and have a clear, high goal. That’s
why he’s there. To connect you to the common man. His wife will stand beside
him to connect the world to her common womanhood, and his kids will make their
appearance. You’ll have to world eating out of your hand when you pull this
off.”
“If. There’s a big ‘if’ there. Cancer surgery – cancer treatment
– even in the late 21st Century, is still far from an exact science.
We could still lose her to her cancer,” Ohloo hated the faint whine that’d
edged into her voice.
There was a long pause, then Machi said softly, “If that’s
the case, then you can kiss your career – and quite possibly life on Earth –
good-bye. Have a nice night, dear.” The line went dead.
Ohloo spent the next hour staring into the frozen darkness
beyond her windows.
