Exploratory
Early this morning, at Miami’s Baptist Memorial Hospital, the head nurse calls the hospital’s plan an exploratory surgery. The patient is Margo Benjamin, age 50. Her son, Stuart, and her daughter, Janie, do their best to help navigate the unfolding terror that surrounds them. It’s July 3, 1976. The nation’s bi-centenial is in full swing. The medical staff wear American flag pins by their name tags.
The surgeon sounds demeaning as he basically scolds Margo for having waited so long to show the lump in her breast to a “medical professional.” In a rushed consultation, he explains that they will remove the tumor and try to determine if it is cancerous, then do a radical mastectomy if it is. That doesn’t sound too exploratory to any of them, but in this day and age, doctors think of themselves as Gods and nobody asks them any questions because, like any other deity, they have the power to hand down life-and-death sentences. There’s a fear that simply questioning their omnipotence could sway them into trying a little less hard to save your life. So Stuart, Janie, and Margo listen—respectfully—and do their best to quell the rising tide of anxiety. The surgeon finishes by adding a single thread of hope, saying, “If we can determine that the tumor is not cancerous, we won’t do the mastectomy while we’re in there.”
A few moments later, the anesthesiologist inquires, “Are you ready to get started, Mrs. Benjamin?”
Looks are exchanged. There’s no Mr. Benjamin. He left six years earlier.
“If I answer ‘no,’ would it matter?”
The anesthesiologist tries to be reassuring. “I’ll make sure you’re comfortable the whole time.”
Janie squeezes the hand that has the IV plugged into the veins of her mom’s forearm. Stuart leans down and kisses her on the forehead.
The anesthesiologist adds a sedative to the IV cocktail, explaining, “You’ll start to feel tired very soon.”
Margo’s grip on Janie’s hand relaxes as she drifts into twilight land.
Son and daughter follow the bed as their mom is wheeled out. An orderly stops them from proceeding past a set of double doors labeled “Staff Only.”
#
In the corner of the room, on the TV, a local high school band plays “The Star-Spangled Banner” to kick off a newscast. Brother and sister stare at runny eggs in the hospital cafeteria, both using forks to push messes around their respective plates. Janie bites into the corner of a piece of rye toast, about as much food as she’ll be able to eat this morning.
A speaker crackles overhead. From out of nowhere, they hear, “Janie and Stuart Benjamin, please report immediately to the post-operative nurse’s station on the second floor.” They exchange ‘holy shit’ looks and push away the plates of food, rising up and quickly gathering their belongings. How is it possible that Mom could be out of surgery already?
#
The recovery room.
Margo’s leaden eyelids begin to flutter. Her left hand, the one that isn’t pinned to the bed with an IV plugged into a purple and bruised vein, drifts upward toward her left breast. She is able to feel it. Both breasts are still there! Through the haze of the anesthesia, she starts to smile.
Stuart and Janie look at one another with crestfallen faces. Janie’s subtle upward nod communicates to her older brother that it’s his job to tell their mom what they know. He takes his mother’s hand and holds it through the bed rail. “Mom.” She tries to turn her head. “Mom, can you hear me?”
Margo nods. Eyelids flutter as she tries to focus on her son’s face.
“They told us they didn’t do the surgery because...” he closes his eyes, takes an unusually deep breath, and forces out the words, “because the tumor was too big to cut out. They said it has things called tendrils, and they’ve grown into your lungs, even wound around your heart, and… they didn’t think they could remove it without… without killing you.”
Margo slowly withdraws her hand and turns her head away from her two children.
#
A half hour later, she is wheeled from recovery to her room. In the room’s corner is a door to an outside courtyard. Baptist Memorial Hospital, in the Kendall District of Miami, is surrounded by lakes, palm trees, and walking paths. Whether provoked by hunger, anxiety, or the knotted ball of fear in his gut, Stuart desperately needs to get through the door to the outside world.
Exiting onto the courtyard, he tries to take a deep breath. He can’t. His head is swimming. His heart is pounding.
He has been a part-time smoker since he was 14 years old. In another part of the courtyard, a few yards away, an older Cuban man is seated in a chair chain-smoking unfiltered Camels. Stuart takes three steps toward the man, intending to bum a cigarette, desperate to do anything to calm himself down. Then he pauses.
The insanity of his body telling him that a cigarette will calm him down while his mother lies in a hospital room with what is very likely a terminal cancer diagnosis stops him cold. The man looks up. “Cigarillo?”
Stuart shakes his head and gestures no.
“¿Habla Español?”
“Un poco.”
The Cuban man exhales a plume of smoke. “It’s gonna be okay.”
Stuart forces a sad smile. In his heart, he knows what he really needs: a miracle. He glances back at the door to his mother’s room. He knows he should go back inside. He stands in the sun. Not moving. Smelling the smoke from the cigarette.
