Onetwothreefour

It started in the car.

When I’d look over my shoulder to change lanes I’d have trouble actually seeing what was going on for a second. It was as if there were two images and my eyes had to adjust – sort of like a Viewmaster the first time you try it. There would be two independent images at first, and then they'd slowly coalesce into one. I only noticed this phenomenon when I looked to the far left or right. When I looked straight ahead, whether I was driving or standing still, everything was fine. I chalked it up to the new glasses. We had a vision plan that I hadn’t taken full advantage of at work and I figured I could use a new pair. I’d gotten them a few months earlier. Oh well.

Except it didn’t get better. It was starting to get irritating. I finally mentioned it to Amy, a co-worker. “You better get that checked out,” she said. “That can be a sign of a brain tumor.”

“It’s not a tumah!” I joked in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger/Kindergarten Cop voice. I mean, come on, what're the odds of that? Only people on soap operas and cell phone users get brain tumors. I wasn't on a soap and I didn't have a cell phone. Couldn't be me.

Like most men, the only time I ever made a trip to the doctor was when something was really wrong – if it was a cold or flu or some immediate, obvious thing. I hadn’t had a physical in years. I mean, why? I was in my late 30's, ate a pretty good diet and worked out on a semi-regular basis. Why go if there isn't a problem?

But the potential for cancer was there. Two years earlier I attempted to reconnect with my biological father and over the course of our brief email exchange he'd told me about a litany of potentially heredity health issues, culminating with colon cancer, which had killed his mother. He was now battling it himself, along with pancreatic cancer.

“You really should get tested,” he had said in an email.

I blew it off, thinking I was too young to worry about any of this and that it wouldn’t happen to me.

But still, the eye thing was really getting irritating.

I made an appointment.