Tina Fey Saved My Life
This past September was busy and hard in the most pedestrian of ways - I was busy, I had too much travel lined up, whine whine whine. Anyway, I was feeling a little bit stressed. To counteract that feeling, I retreated to a beautiful land, set in a time when the idea of insane grifters in power was merely a punchline: 30 Rock Season 3. I was lying down and watching the magic of Tracy and Kenneth, Jack and Liz, when I absent-mindedly draped a hand across my chest.
I felt a lump.
Huh. The marble-ish thingy moving around beneath my skin was surely just a cyst or a gland or something, right? Aren't my boobs far too small to develop a dangerous condition? They've barely even developed, amirite (hardy har har)? The questions flashed through my mind in one jolt before I almost immediately landed on the conclusion that I'll be fine. I’d read an article once in O magazine that most lumps are benign, and it turns out that anything Oprah has even slightly endorsed is enough to keep me calm. Just to be sure, I did a Google search, where I found out that women under 40 are very unlikely to develop breast cancer. Thus comforted, I did what anyone facing a potentially life-changing discovery should do: I rolled over and went to sleep. I figured that if both of the Gods of my life (Google and Oprah) had confirmed what my own instinct thought to be true, then I was probably in for an easy explanation from the doctor.
I was not in for an easy explanation from the doctor.
I was in for months of painful testing that led to an ever-changing diagnosis, eventually landing at Stage 1a breast cancer. They also said I was lucky. (Okay, well, one doctor did say that I will "die from the disease" if I don't cure this now, but most stuck with the "lucky" messaging.) I really had no business finding that lump, which turned out to be benign, or the cancer that surrounded it. So how did I, a woman with no risk factors and no practice of self-examination catch the disease at a treatable stage? Quiet time with my dark-haired jokestress, Tina Fey, and fortuitous hand placement. You can put that on my tombstone, preferably in 2080.
It's actually the second time that my Sweet Tsarina of Snark saved me. Years ago, I was in a toxic work environment. Things were hard-charging and stressful, and there were times when I felt like a failure as a person because of my shortcomings in the office. Note to self: never feel this way again. It was a spiritually trying experience that frequently left me crying myself to sleep. And at my desk. And at friend's apartments. And on the sidewalk...I did a lot of crying in that time period. Enter: my bespectacled angel and her sacred text, Bossypants.
I started reading this book and, like any human with a pulse, it made me laugh. Almost immediately, it clarified something else for me: I was not put on this Earth to sell shit. I was put on this Earth to laugh and make others laugh; to try hard and often fail and still keep trying; and to chase my dream of writing stories that reflect misadventures in the prior two categories. I kept a copy of Bossypants on my desk for the remainder of my time at that company. When office life got me down, Tina's delicate forearms stared back from the cover of the book to remind me that I should do my thing, and not care if they like it.
But back to the present time. Doctor after doctor has told me that I have “an interesting case.” I get the feeling that we stumbled upon something at a stage when most women don’t have the opportunity to fight it, instead needing to wait until more dire symptoms appear. There was something about the specific placement of my hand that evening that feels fortuitous to the point of being barely conceivable. Perhaps I was guided by the divine. Perhaps the divine is…Tina Fey.
I need more time to achieve the life goals revealed to me via the sacred text of Bossypants. I need more nights in the blue light haze of 30 Rock re-runs, laughing when I should probably be worrying. Tina Fey, Shero of the Upper West Side, has illuminated my path and