Meg’s Story: The Last Bad Boyfriend

My sister called me about 3:00 on the Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend. “I have breast cancer,” she said.Her husband and two 20-something daughters had already left town for various long weekend festivities. She had planned three days of being blissfully alone and catching up on chores, uninterrupted. She discovered a hard, pea-sized lump in her left breast in February and what with one thing and another, it had taken three months to get multiple doctor appointments, various tests, a biopsy, and finally to run by the radiologist’s office to pick up her scans. The radiologist handed her a large manila envelope and told her point-blank, “You have breast cancer. You need to call your doctor first thing Monday morning.”I had plans myself – great plans – for the long weekend. My two sons were with their father and I was going to hide out with The Last Bad Boyfriend – drink, talk, screw, eat, nap, swim, walk. But, sisters come first in times like this. I told my sister to come immediately to my building – I worked for a medical school and the first thing we could do was look at the scans then review the documents and get interpretations that made sense to us.I called The Last Bad Boyfriend and told him the horrible news. His first response was, “Can’t you do that on Monday?” And he is a physician.There are more – the relationship lasted almost 8 years.