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started a new phase of expert-worship: the best universities; the best residencies. Top doctors. Academic fame and fortune. I actually tried translating the Latin in the diplomas hanging on doctors’ walls. Harvard—OK, that’ll do—but was that a magna or a magna with highest honors? Why not a summa ? Instead of ordinary physicals, I went to see a high-risk gynecologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In those days, there was a whole department at the Dana-Farber dedicated to high-risk ovarian cancer, and I had ultrasounds and blood tests there twice a year. The blood test—CA-125—was new and relatively controversial—there could be false negatives as well as false positives. The test measured a tumor marker in the blood, and in theory if the numbers stayed low—under thirty-five—that was a good sign.
    I didn’t mind the blood work, it was the ultrasounds I dreaded. In order for the doctors to “visualize my ovaries,” I needed to distend my bladder, drinking thirty-two ounces or more of water in the waiting room, and I’d sit there reading months-old issues of Family Circle magazine, palms sweaty, bladder aching, waiting my turn. Why are there never any windows in waiting rooms? They’d call my name—they always mispronounced it—and I’d head back into the dark, tunneled depths of radiology, my bladder swollen to bursting. Once on the table my heart would pound while the technician worked the cold wand back and forth inside of me, squinting at the monitor. Total silence. Back and forth with the wand, pressing murderously on my swollen bladder. I would lie there in misery, eyes straining to see what she saw: the gray shapes on the screen; the illegible shadows. Something would rise into view, like a gray, gibbous moon. What was that? Was it an organ, or a tumor? My heart would pound, long, slow beats: not yet — not now—not this—not me —It was always dead quiet in the darkened room; no expression on the technician’s face. Then it would be over. I’d be free to get up, wipe the goop off myself with the blue paper gown, and tear to the bathroom before heading out to the waiting room, where a nurse, poker-faced, would ask me to fill out a questionnaire. One of the doctors at the Farber was running a clinical trial on potential links between talcum powder and ovarian cancer. You could guess his hypothesis from the order of the questions:
    1. Do you use talcum powder? What brand? How often?
    2. Do you smoke? How many cigarettes a day? A week?
    3. Do you eat fatty foods?
    4. Do you suffer from depression?
    5. What does the word risk mean to you?
    When I was finished—four “nos” and one “I’m not really sure”—I’d stuff my completed questionnaire in a wire basket along with one or two others. I didn’t have much confidence the talcum powder theory was going to be proven any time soon. That was it. Six months would pass in a flash, and I’d be back again.
    I lived from fear to fear.
    Once in a while I’d see another patient or two in the waiting room, but none of us talked to each other or exchanged information. It was a lonely world, high-risk ovarian cancer.
    I didn’t say good-bye before we moved.
    Instead, I headed down to Washington and left the Farber behind. I tried to act the way a thirty-year-old with a new job and a man she loved should act. Happiness was new and unfamiliar to me, like permanent good weather, and I just wanted to enjoy it. When it came time to look for doctors in DC, I skipped oncology and went straight to ob-gyns.
     
    EVERYTHING ABOUT MY LIFE IN DC felt new. New man, new job, new house. I felt myself letting go of worry, bit by bit. I almost stopped worrying ( almost ) about cancer. For the first time in conscious memory, I stopped convincing myself each mysterious pain or bruise was the first symptom of a hideous, fatal disease. Instead of obsessing (was one of my pupils usually bigger than the other? Had that mole always been blurry at the edges?) I