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

six-centimeter tumor in my liver. . . . I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver. . . . I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver. . . . I have a six-centimeter tumor in my liver. . . .
    I take a few seconds off from my impersonation of Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
and I finally have a glimmer of intelligence. I wonder to myself: “So is six centimeters very big for a tumor in the liver?”
    According to the oncologist, who frowns as he studies my sonogram, that really is a very respectable size for a tumor. A handsome flourishing robust tumor. The first thing he prescribes, in fact, the first thing he orders me to do is to get an immediate and complete CAT scan of my upper body.
    I schedule one, and in the meanwhile, I spend the night surfing the Web. I go back to doing something I’ve always hated. I study. I don’t feel like doing anything else—eating, drinking, or sleeping. AllI want to do is spend hour after hour Googling the words
tumor, liver, cure,
and so on.
    In the course of the next few hours I become the world’s greatest living expert on carcinomas. I even discover that the first operations to remove tumor masses were done by the Egyptian scientist and polymath Imhotep, a sort of Nilotic Leonardo da Vinci, capable of designing the immortal pyramids and founding Western medical science, and ultimately actually venerated as the god of medicine. At the time, nearly all his patients, operated upon without anesthesia, either died during the procedure or else bled to death immediately afterward. I skip four thousand years of medical history and focus on more recent studies of my buddy Fritz.
    I read a Web page on the subject: “Hepatocellular carcinomas are the most common type of primary liver tumors.”
    I’ve come down with an illness that isn’t even particularly original.
    â€œIt develops in the liver cells and damages the other healthy cells.”
    Great.
    â€œThe uninterrupted growth of the tumor cells can result in a malignant form of tumor.”
    Outstanding.
    â€œAt first, this kind of tumor doesn’t cause any particular disturbance and is very difficult to identify.”
    What an asshole.
    â€œOnce the tumor has reached a certain size, various symptoms may manifest, such as abdominal pains, bloating, weight loss, nausea, vomiting, exhaustion, and a yellowish tinge to the complexion and the eyes.”
    I’ve got every one of them.
    â€œMen are more likely to develop this type of tumor. Depending on the nature and stage of the tumor, a different array of treatments can be utilized. Surgery or liver transplant are viable alternatives only if the tumor is small and contained within the liver. If however thetumor has spread and expanded, chemotherapy or radiation therapy can extend survival times, but will not cure the pathology.”
    They will not cure the pathology.
    The words echo like one of Pavarotti’s high Cs in the back of the pastry shop. I sit there staring at my laptop, locked into a freeze frame.
    They will not cure the pathology.
    They . . . will . . . not . . . cure . . . the . . . pathology
.
    The findings from this search are unequivocal.
    Nothing has changed since Imhotep’s day.
    I’m going to die.
    Up till now, that’s a verb in the future tense that we’ve all known since we were kids. We’re all going to die. It’s just that I’m going to die a little sooner than expected.
    A little sooner than I would have liked.
    A little sooner than seems strictly fair.
    I’m going to die a little sooner. Period.
    Â * * * 
    I still haven’t said anything to Paola. Partly out of shame, partly because she never answers my phone calls, but chiefly because I still don’t really believe it. I don’t want to believe it, and really, I can’t.
    At breakfast, I tell the news to the other two musketeers: Umberto