by Alben Osaki
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“What was my blood pressure?” I ask.
“You’re at 118 over 72,” the nurse practitioner tells me as she undoes the Velcro of the blood pressure cuff.
I smile. “That’s pretty good.”
She sits down at the computer and starts to type away. I sit there silently waiting. The exam table paper crinkles under me as I shift my weight. This doctor’s office is otherwise unremarkable. Like any number of medical exam rooms I’ve been in throughout my life. Finally, she asks, “Can you tell me about your family history with cancer?”
There’s something odd I feel when she asks that. A stark contrast of who I think I am and the reality of my situation. The picture of a healthy 36-year-old man, fresh out of Wilderness EMT training, climbing mountains and running trail races.
I nod. “So it’s mostly just my paternal side. My dad had colon cancer and he passed from it,” I say. “And both my aunt and cousin had it. He actually has Lynch syndrome, which is why I’m here.”
She continues to type. I know she’s just writing down my medical history, but it feels oddly like she’s calculating my survival odds onto a spreadsheet. “Well, most people begin colonoscopy screenings at 45. But considering your family history, I would recommend scheduling one now. And we’ll get genetic testing done to check to see if you also have Lynch syndrome.”
Lynch syndrome is an inherited genetic condition that significantly increases the likelihood of certain cancers, especially at a young age. If a parent has it, there’s a 50% chance that it’s passed on to a child.
“I have a son,” I tell her. “If I have Lynch syndrome, would we need to test him as well?”
She shakes her head. “No, we would recommend you tell his pediatrician, but he wouldn’t be tested until he’s at least 18 years old.”
Seventeen years of waiting to see the results of a genetic coin flip. That’s a long time for Schrödinger's cat to live in that box. Seventeen years of watching him scrape his knee, start school, and make friends, carrying something that he doesn’t even know exists yet. But I feel oddly calm about it. Back when my dad had colon cancer, genetic mapping wasn’t very common. Nobody was checking. Cancer treatments were reactive.
By the time my son turns 18, he’ll have a whole playbook for how to live a normal life, if he even has Lynch syndrome. It’ll probably be mildly annoying (more screenings more often) but otherwise it won’t really affect him. This weird feeling of dread doesn’t have to do with me, or my son, really. It’s more of a realization of how defenseless my dad was.
The nurse practitioner prints out the lab referral for my genetic testing and tells me that I can also schedule my colonoscopy when I check out. Just like that, my own genetic question mark is folded into an after-visit summary and slid into my back pocket as I walk out of the clinic.
Later that night, I sit in the rocking chair in my son’s room. He is beginning to nod off in my arms as I rock him to sleep. A car drives past our window and bright white LED lights streak through the blinds. I get nervous that it’ll wake him, but he doesn’t seem to stir. I look down at him, just over one year old now, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m having the same thoughts and feelings my dad did when I was one and he was looking down at me.
I really never knew I could love someone like I do my son. I just always want to be around him. I want to go and lie down on the floor next to his crib while he sleeps. I want to play with him at the park. I can’t wait to watch movies and shows from my childhood with him. And I can't imagine not seeing how he turns out.
Someone once said that it’s easy to explain the hard parts of being a parent: being tired or annoyed. Anyone can relate to that. But it’s hard to explain the best parts about it, the wonder of seeing this tiny person grow into their own personality. Seeing him go from being this little grub wrapped in a blanket to a boy who runs around and chases our cats, and hugs me when he cries, and gets excited at the sight of watermelon.
My dad died of colon cancer when I was 11. I’ve now been alive for much longer than he was in my life, and my perspective on his death has transformed over the years. It went from profound sadness, to acceptance, and eventually, gratefulness. Because I know that had he never passed, my life would be very different than it is now.
But in the wake of my appointment earlier in the day, I can’t help but put myself in his shoes now, and I’m gut-punched by the perspective shift: a father looking down at his son. For twenty-five years, my dad’s death was entirely my own tragedy. I was the kid looking down at his body, crying over a styrofoam plate of cold mac and cheese in a hospital room. I was the one who was left behind to figure out my grief, my life, and how to grow up without him by my side.
But now the camera has swung 180 degrees and for the first time in my life, I see through my father’s eyes. My grief, that of the 11-year-old boy knowing he was about to lose his hero and best friend, was only half the grief in the hospital room that day. The other half was from a father, lying in an uncomfortable hospital bed, hooked up to IVs and beeping sensors, looking at his 11-year-old son and knowing his body was giving up on him. Knowing that it was time for him to let go of the rope and that he’d have to leave me alone in this world before he even got a chance to teach me how to navigate it.
Easing out of the rocking chair, I lift my now sleeping son against my chest, the white noise machine masking the sound of the chair as I stand. As it usually happens when he falls asleep on me, the back of his head is a little bit sweaty and his hair is matted. I carry him to the crib and gently set him down. He begins to stir, but I place a pacifier in his hand. It finds his mouth and he relaxes again. I stand in the dim light, hands on the edge of his crib, and watch him for a moment. I can’t change whatever genetic code is mapped inside either of us. But as I step away and quietly leave through his bedroom door, I know I’ll hold on to the rope as long as I can, just like my dad did.
