Out of the Woods by Lynn Darling

Author:Lynn Darling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

What’s this?”

It was a beautiful day. The city blazed with a hard metallic sheen of bright sunshine and bitter cold. The shrink and I had had a lively conversation on one of the less tedious tropes in my psychological canon and the dental hygienist had praised my excellent flossing. What else was there? Who needed love? I was fine, just the way I was.

Not so fast, said the Kindly Ones.

Ron Ruden had been my doctor since I first moved to New York. We had daughters exactly the same age, and it was he, more than the Olympian and unreachable doctors at Sloan-Kettering, who had guided me through my husband’s illness. My annual visits to his office were mainly spent catching up on family news, with a mere ten minutes devoted to the requisite poking and prodding and drawing of blood.

So my mind was far away, planning that night’s menu, when his question brought me back to the reality of the exam room. He was palpating my left breast.

What’s what? I asked.

This, he said. He guided my hand to something hard near the breastbone, which in fact was what I had thought it was when I had done my own manual examinations.

It was a mass. A large one. Dr. Ruden was talking but I couldn’t seem to hear him. I got dressed while he called the hospital and scheduled an emergency mammogram for the next day.

Back in his office, he said, It’s probably nothing.

I looked straight into his eyes and read what was written there.

Dr. Ruden? You don’t play poker, do you?

No.

Good.

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