“The Survivor Monologues”: Cancer Stories from New York Magazine

Looking for more cancer stories? New York magazine in its May 28th issue ( now in newsstands) is featuring a compilation of cancer stories – The Survivor Monologues – from 16 people including its deputy editor Jon Gluck in his piece entitled “The Radioactive Dad”.

One of the things about growing up in the age of TV is that we’ve seen all of the big acts of the human drama—weddings, births, deaths—played out before we’ve experienced them. What happened next had an eerie feeling of familiarity about it.

Dr. Weiner came in and closed the door. He told me to sit down. He sat directly across from me, fixed me with a professional gaze, and said, “I’ve got the results of your MRI. There is a lesion on your hip.”

Only this wasn’t an ER episode. And Weiner’s voice, dispassionate as he tried to make it, contained an unmistakable trace of actual human horror.

“A lesion?” I said. “You mean a tumor?”

“Yes,” he said.

And just like that, I had cancer.

“NO.”

I used to think of denial as a pop-psych cliché. Not anymore. The first thing I said to Dr. Weiner was, “No. No, no, no, no. This isn’t possible. I’m 37 years old. I feel fine.”

And then: “I have a 7-month-old daughter. This cannot be true.”

Want more first-accounts of such moments when cancer enters a person’s life?

Read the rest of The Survivor Monoloques.

[hat tip: Shai Coggins]