100 Days of Happiness by Fausto Brizzi Read Free Book Online Page A

office. I immediately ask Umberto just what was in the tattooed woman’s basket.
    â€œA python. Very fashionable these days,” he answers nonchalantly. Then he asks me the reason for this surprise visit. It’s the first time I’ve come to his clinic for professional reasons.
    I explain to him about the abdominal pains I’ve been experiencing for almost eight months now. I haven’t been to see a doctor in years and years. I’ve been avoiding the public health doctor whom I share with Paola to keep from alarming her excessively. The doctor is a friend of Paola’s and certainly would talk to her about it. I’m practically certain, I explain to Umberto, that it must be an ulcer.
    My friend tells me to lie on my back and he palpates my stomach with expertise. I feel a sharp stab of pain. I can see that he’s a little worried.
    â€œDoes it hurt right here?” he asks.
    The answer is clear from the grimace on my face.
    As I get dressed, he explains that in his opinion this is neither a hernia nor an intercostal muscle strain, much less an ulcer.
    â€œIt’s a small lump,” he explains, “between the liver and the stomach; it’s hard to say with such a generic examination. It might be a lipoma, which in layman’s terms is an anomalous but benign clump of fat. I’d immediately order an abdominal sonogram. These days that kind of equipment can do a quick and accurate analysis.”
    â€œIn fact, Paola recommended the same thing a couple of months ago.”
    â€œAnd she was right. As she almost always is, I should add.”
    He scolds me for a while, the way only doctors and high school teachers know how. He’s right, I should have listened to my wife and kept that sliding door from slamming shut.
    â€œI’d do a blood test too. You’ll see, it’s probably nothing,” Umberto concludes. “You almost never drink, you don’t smoke, and you’re even a former athlete!”
    I have no difficulty understanding that he’s trying to keep from freaking me out.
    I don’t like the smile on his face one little bit.
    Â * * * 
    Skipping over the boring parts, here’s the report from the sonogram of my abdomen that was done two days later in a specialized medical clinic. I read the results while waiting for the doctor who’s going to go over them with me, and I immediately consult Wikipedia on my smart phone. I look for the two words that appear in bold after the phrase “the patient was found to present a . . . .” Those two words are
hepatocellular carcinoma
.
    Wikipedia is efficient as always.
    A carcinoma is a malignant tumor.
    Tumor. Malignant.
    Two words, are each unpleasant enough taken alone.
    Hepatocellular, on the other hand, means that the organ affected is the liver.
    The liver.
    Outstanding.
    Even newborn babies know that a tumor to the liver is the most dangerous kind.
    Two lines down is the size of the intruder.
    It’s six centimeters long.
    In my cozy tummy I’ve been hosting a hepatocellular carcinoma6.0 centimeters in length, with a diameter of 0.7 centimeters, as my guest.
    More or less the size of a French fry.
    Even newborn babies know that French fries aren’t good for you.
    I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver. My blood tests also confirm the excessively elevated values of the tumor markers that show the undesired presence in my organism. There’s no chance it’s a mistake.
    I don’t even wait for the doctor who is scheduled to come break the news to me. I head out onto the street.
    I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver.
    I wander aimlessly.
    I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver.
    I repeat the words over and over aloud, like an obsessive mantra.
    I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver.
    I can’t seem to stop.
    I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver. . . . I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver. . . . I have a