Chapter 5

LIMBO: An uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution; an intermediate state or condition

About fifteen minutes after leaving the radiology center, I walked into our home office, where Jim was in the middle of an interview for a documentary we were producing. Sky, our right-hand man, was filming him. Sky is a guy. His name, when it appears in an email, often causes people to assume he is female. He finds this error a constant source of amusement, and he is never offended by it—it’s just his “Janine.” Because I have a million kids and have been exposed to every uncommon name under the sun (and sky), I happen to know that the female version of the name “Sky” is actually spelled “Skye,” but many people do not, and whenever Sky and I were on an email together to a business associate that we had never met face-to-face, it was not uncommon to have the sender begin the email with something like, “Hey Ladies!” at which Sky and I would react with amusement, and have a fun debate over whether or not to ever tell the person that Sky was actually not a lady. Also entertaining was when we occasionally did correct the sender, informing him or her that Sky was indeed a member of the male persuasion. The reaction was always the same: Way too much overapologizing and admitting humiliation. As if they had accidentally assumed a woman who had put on a few pounds was pregnant.

“Oh my God, I am sooooooo sorry! I am such an idiot. Whoa. My total bad! I should not have assumed that. Open mouth, insert foot. Please forgive my stupidity and ignorance.” Since it really was never a big deal, many times we just chose to let Sky remain a lady to keep things less awkward. He doesn’t care. He’s twenty-four years old going on wise old man.

We didn’t actually “meet” Sky; rather, we stumbled upon him. Very early in season 1 of The Jim Gaffigan Show, our writer’s assistant had to leave abruptly while we were in the middle of shooting and it could have been a disaster. The head of the production company we were working with was quick to help. While he was gathering candidates for us to interview, he gave us the name and number of one of his best office PAs to assist us in the meantime. When I got his number, it was Sky. I recalled that I had heard our former assistant speak his name before (“I’ll just send Sky to pick that up”), but I had never met him. When I was entering his number into my phone, I noticed it was a 414 area code. The same as I had growing up in Milwaukee. So I sent him a text:

This person, whom I had randomly met by chance in New York City, grew up a few blocks away from me in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we shared many identical childhood experiences. We knew tons of the same people, and as it turned out, our fathers were both film historians and his grandmother and my father worked together for years at a Milwaukee newspaper. His childhood best friends lived in the house next door to my parents.

He started working for us immediately as a temporary replacement. That’s when we discovered that he was already thoroughly familiar with our work. Within a day we realized that he had been acting as an assistant to our former assistant. He knew everything about what we were doing—from the scripts, to the promos, to our coffee orders. He worked as hard as we did and he actually cared as much as we did, which was rare and unique. Sky stepped right into the role of being an essential part of every aspect of our very intense creative process. Even after the show ended, we brought him into all of our other projects, and our kids started to view him as one of the Gaffigan clan.

So when I came in that day, distraught from the MRI confusion, and Jim and Sky were working on the documentary, I had no problem interrupting them to say I was concerned. I was with family.

“You guys, I think something is wrong with me.”

I was admitting this to myself at the same time. Now that I was in a safe place, I was no longer channeling my fear into anger about waiting around at the clinic. I was terrified.

“What happened?”

I told them all about Margarita Guy and the sudden change in his demeanor. I told them about the suspicious “your doctor will call you” scenario.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Jim did not seem too concerned. In retrospect, he was probably very concerned but he couldn’t show it. In our relationship, as in most good relationships, if one of us is freaking out about something, the other one’s automatic role is to remain calm. It’s a natural reflex that transforms couples into “good cop/hysterical cop.” If you are at a restaurant and the service is horrendous, one of you will be furious, and the other will be all, “Honey, calm down; maybe she’s having a bad day.” In other situations, the reactions will be reversed. It’s a couple survival instinct. If you know couples who both lose it at the same time, you probably aren’t friends with them anymore. Jim and I have been through so much together, including a lot of medical scares while I was pregnant. Some of these scares turned out to be nothing, and some were indeed worst-case scenarios, and we survived them all. Jim’s stoic confidence had its familiar calming effect on me. I felt better.

I put it out of my head and jumped into working on the documentary with them. We were in the middle of creating a “making of” film about the difficulties of writing a comedy special while our lives were so busy. Very meta concept, to write a film about being busy while we were actually too busy to write a film, but very standard practice for Jim and Jeannie. We wanted to finish it by September. It was April. We had plenty of time. Or so we thought. Less than an hour into work, the phone rang, and I saw it was Dr. Godin. Needless to say, after that call, the documentary never got made.

“Hi, Jeannie, it’s Dr. Godin. How are you?”

“I don’t know. Actually, I have been waiting for your phone call for you to tell me how I am. Did they find something wrong with my ear?”

“Well, I’m looking at your report now, and it appears that you have a large mass growing in your brain.” He sounded so casual.

“Okay,” I said. Jim and Sky were staring at me, not hearing the other side of the conversation.

He continued. “A lot of the time, these things are benign growths. To tell you the truth, my own mother has several of them, called meningiomas, and they just kind of watch them. That’s what it might be.”

“Okay,” I said again. I looked at Jim and Sky. They must have seen the panic in my eyes because they looked really scared.

“This sort of thing is out of my area of expertise. I’m going to give you the names of two really great neurosurgeons. I mean, normally I would refer you to a neurologist, but in this case the neurologist would just refer you to a neurosurgeon anyway.” I picked up a pen to start writing this down. My hand was shaking uncontrollably.

I tried to match the calmness in the doctor’s voice. “Okay, um, so, there is some mass in my brain? And you want me to make appointments with neurosurgeons?” I repeated this for the benefit of Jim, who was obviously wondering what the hell was going on.

“Yes. This is what I want you to do. Go back to the radiology center and get the scans. Normally they are like $15 or $20 a copy. Then make an appointment with either one of those doctors. Both are really great.” I tried to steady my hand to write down the names of the surgeons. Jim and Sky were frozen in their spots.

“Okay,” I said. That word seemed to be pretty much my side of this conversation. “Um, so what do you think the neurosurgeon is going to do?”

“Well, as I said, this is really not my area, so I can’t give you any real medical advice. But I would imagine they would try to resect at least part of it.”

“What does resect mean?”

“Remove.”

“But… it’s in my brain, right?”

Dr. Godin cleared his throat. “Look, I am not sure what they are going to do; as I mentioned, it’s not my area, but don’t worry. Just get the scan and make the appointments. These doctors will know what to do.”

“Okay.” My new favorite word.

“And let me know after you make the appointments. I want you to follow up with me.”

“I will.” I hung up and sprang into action.

“I have to go back to the place and get my scans.”

Jim grabbed his jacket. “I’m coming with you.” We hurried down the block silently, lost in our thoughts but holding hands tightly, and got in a cab. We were at Union Square in five minutes. We went together to the lower, lower level and I approached the desk with confidence and determination, emboldened by Jim’s presence. Team Gaffigan.

“Hi, I need the scans from the MRI I got today.” Jim stood behind me with his arms folded over his chest, staring down the receptionist like my bodyguard.

“They’re $25 a disc.”

“I’ll take three copies. No, four.” Money was no object in this situation. I don’t know why I thought I needed all those copies of my scan, but it made me feel better to have them. It was like how everyone in New York City bought all the water in the stores after the planes hit the World Trade Center, even though there was no shortage of water. The four scans gave me a false sense of control. Who knew? Maybe the fourth one would save my life. We sat in silence as we waited about thirty minutes for the scans. What do you even say to each other in this scenario? “So. How is your day going?” After we greedily collected the four discs, we immediately went back to our office to see what all the fuss was about. The problem was, we’d forgotten our computers didn’t have disc drives in them. Damn those technological advancements.

“Wait! We have an external disc drive!” I started opening drawers and file boxes. In my office and my home, I have this super OCD way of labeling everything. Everywhere you look in my house, there is a sign, note, or label designating where things belong. Even if I am not there, it looks like I’m bossing everyone around. In reality, the signs and notes are for me so I don’t forget where things are, which is just what happened in the case of the external hard drive. I knew I’d put it in a logical place, but since it was the only one, it did not have its own label. Would I have put it with storage hard drives? No. What other things were like things that you plug into your computer? I was lost. Suddenly all my labeled organization meant nothing as we frantically searched for the technology that would allow us to view the scan. Where the hell was that drive? Finally, I found it in the top drawer of a side table where we also stored the extra Wite-Out. No logic.

I plugged it in and inserted the disc. Jim and I stared at the computer screen, nervously waiting for it to load. When it finally showed up, we clicked open the file, and, instead of an image, we saw a string of numbers. “We can’t open this on our computers! We need a hospital computer.” Okay, that’s fine, we could just call the neurosurgeons to make the appointment. Maybe they would let us swing by and look at the scan. I dialed the first number and got the receptionist. I was frantic but remained calm and fake-dignified. “Hi. I’m a patient of Dr. Godin, and he recommended I call the doctor because an MRI I had today detected a large mass in my brain and he wants me to meet with the neurosurgeon.” I paused briefly for the concerned and sympathetic reaction in this urgent situation. “Are you a new patient?” came the disinterested response. I was taken aback.

“Of course I’m a new patient. I just told you my MRI showed a mass in my brain and my referring doctor told me to call your office!”

“Do you have the MRI report?”

“No, I have the scan. Do you want that?”

“We will need to see the report first before we see the scan. And I need the report if you want to make an appointment as a new patient.” How many people are making fake appointments with brain surgeons with no report? Why would I make this up?

I called my ENT doctor and got his assistant, Kurt. “Hi, the neurosurgeon the doctor recommended needs the report from the MRI in order to make the appointment. Can you please send him the report? It’s urgent.” Kurt agreed to ask the doctor to send the report and told me the neurosurgeon should have it in an hour. An hour later, to the second, I called back. They had the report. Still not concerned. The job application for medical receptionists must have the requirement: “has worked as a maximum-security prison guard.” I put the call on speakerphone so Jim could be more involved.

“The doctor can see you at 2 p.m. on May 16.” That was over a month away.

“Do you have anything earlier?”

“No, you can call back on Tuesday of next week to see if we have had any cancellations, but the doctor is all booked up. Especially for new patients.”

Okay. “Do you want me to drop off the scan?” I was hoping Jim and I could just get a look at it on their fancy computer. See what all the fuss was about.

“Just bring the scan with you to the appointment.” I hung up. Jim looked as frustrated as I felt.

“Call the other guy,” he said. I googled the other neurosurgeon’s number. The receptionist answered. It was the same office. Both of these guys were in the same office.

“I… I just called and made an appointment with Dr. (blank). My ENT also recommended that I call Dr. (other blank). Does he have any appointments before May 16?” He had one on May 8. I took it. They already had the report. I’d just bought eight days.

“Would you like to cancel the appointment with Dr. (blank)?” I looked at Jim. He shook his head.

“No,” I said. “I’ll keep them both.” The receptionist acted annoyed, but for the first time in my life, I didn’t care or apologize. “Well, that was horrible,” I said to Jim.

There wasn’t much else to do at that point except wait until May 8, and bring in the scan. I was in limbo. Jim and I agreed we should not call my parents, or anyone really, to tell them what was going on. We certainly were not going to scare the kids. “The good news is that it must not be that big of a deal if they aren’t rushing you in,” said Jim. That was true. If they were really worried, I’m sure they would have had me come in immediately, right? So, I decided to let go and put it in “God’s hands.” Oh yeah. God. I had totally forgotten about him. He was the perfect person to turn to in a time like this.

I tried talking to him. “Hi, God. I’m pretty concerned about this thing in my brain. Obviously, you are going to take care of everything, right? I know I got really busy and forgot about you, but just so you know, I am relying on you to fix this situation.” I felt like maybe just my talking to him wasn’t enough, since I still had this horrible feeling about sitting on this “not knowing” feeling for three weeks. Who did I know who was buddies with God? It dawned on me. It was time to bring in the big guns. I called Marita.

Marita Haggerty is my mom’s first cousin. She is what is called a “spiritual warrior.” She runs this ministry at her church on Long Island that is for cancer patients who have lost all hope. Her group has healing Masses and prayer sessions for people who are facing the unimaginable and in many cases has had miraculous healings, or so she says. It was time for me to believe it. Marita was something special.

When I first moved from Milwaukee to New York City, I didn’t have any family here that I knew of, which was kind of strange since both of my parents were originally from New York City. My mom grew up in Flushing, Queens, and my father in Manhattan. The roads of their lives intersected when they met at Marquette University in Milwaukee. They settled there and had nine kids. That’s a lot of roots to put down in a new town and a great excuse as to why they lost touch with cousins on the East Coast.

After I graduated from Marquette myself, I did a brief internship at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, where it dawned on me that New York City was the place I actually wanted to live. Once I got there, it wasn’t easy. After struggling for several months with no money, trying to lock down an apartment and a job, my second cousin Anne, Marita’s daughter, looked me up. She was about fifteen years older than me and had a super-prestigious job at Condé Nast. I hadn’t known her at all growing up, but she heard I’d moved to the city and took me under her wing. We instantly got along. Her mother Marita’s parents had passed away when Marita was still a girl, and Marita and her younger brother Bill had to move in with my grandfather and grandmother, who were at the time young parents raising five very young children of their own. So, essentially, Marita and Bill grew up as older siblings to my mother. Geography had separated everyone for years, but now that I was back in New York it was like no time had passed at all. When I met Anne, we were immediately family. We were related by nature and nurture. She called me “cousin Jeannie” so I called her “cousin Annie.” It was a cute, warm title that started as a joke and then just stuck.

Soon Anne invited me out to her childhood house on Long Island for the weekend. The second I met her mother, Marita, I could tell she and my own mother were like sisters. She sat me down at the kitchen counter, gave me some food, and leaned in, peering over her glasses and looking me right in the eye. “How are you really doing, dear?” she said. It was as if my own mother were sitting in front of me because that was exactly what she would have said. Even the sound of her voice and her mannerisms with the glasses were virtually identical. This should have totally freaked me out, but instead it moved me to tears and I threw my arms around her in a giant hug. I had left home, and I missed my mom, but God had brought me here to this new family with their wraparound-porch farmhouse on Long Island. Anne’s siblings, Beth, Greg, and Laura, adopted “cousin Jeannie.” They were a terrifically fun bunch. Every time I had a weekend off or I felt homesick, I was invited to the Haggertys’.

As I got closer to my distant cousins, I became drawn to Marita’s incredible connection with God. At the many celebrations, dinners, weddings, funerals, and parties I attended at their farmhouse, I noticed Marita would often slip away to her room with a serene smile on her face and pray the Rosary. I imagined her up there in her bedroom, listening to the hooting and hollering below, and spending quiet time alone with God. Growing up I had witnessed my own mother slipping away to pray, and it always struck me as weird and annoying. As a rebellious teen, I literally would tell my mom she was crazy and I would hide her little prayer books when my friends came over. As an adult, witnessing Marita doing the same thing, I found myself admiring her. Maybe I was just older and more mature, but seeing this replica of my own mother doing her thing with God made me better understand my childhood and filled me with a newfound love for my mom. I felt shame and joy at the same time, a feeling that perhaps other cultural Catholics reading this book may totally relate to, and that some of you will probably just think is odd and pitiful, but it’s a feeling. I call it “shoy.” What really struck me about Marita’s rich, spiritual life was that in spite of all the hardships, sickness, and tragedy that inevitably come with life and having a big family, she always kept her faith and kept praying. She kept holding her family together, loving people and God. I didn’t understand how she did it, but she did. Now, in my moment of confusion and despair, I knew I had to call her.

I dialed her number and got an answering machine. I forgot people still had those, I thought maybe they were all in museums at this point. Since Marita is in her eighties, it made perfect sense that she had an actual answering machine. While I was listening to the creepy robotic male voice of the factory-recorded outgoing message, I remembered that with answering machines, all the privacy that comes with modern voice mail is lost. You press Play on an answering machine and everyone in the room can hear the message. She might be having some fancy neighbors over for tea, and in the middle of biting into a jelly donut, they’d hear my voice saying, “mass in my brain.” I was not actually sure what my message would say anyway. I couldn’t just hang up, because I remembered the scene from Sixteen Candles where the hunky guy hangs up on the grandparents and they think he’s a pervert. BEEEP. “Uh, hi, Marita, it’s cousin Jeannie. Um, I’m wondering if you could call me about something when you have a chance. Bye!”

I sat staring at my phone. I felt unsatisfied. Would the message get to her? Should I have said it was urgent? I didn’t want to upset anyone. That’s why I wasn’t calling my parents. I mean, my mom is a prayer warrior too, but asking her to pray for me because I might have brain cancer is kind of like asking an ob/gyn to deliver their spouse’s baby. Was Marita even in town? I knew I could ask her oldest daughter, Beth. I felt really close to Beth because we had a connection as eldest female children of big families. We had also been joined at the vein as blood sisters when we were in the hospital together while Anne was so sick with cancer. Beth was in the hospital all the time, long after Anne lost her speech. She was the one who made sure there was always someone with Anne and managed everyone’s comings and goings. I remember each time I walked into Mount Sinai to see Anne in her hospital bed, Beth would be there, circles under her eyes, but always with a smile and a hug. “Cousin Jeannie! I’m so glad you are here.” Even though we’d grown up half a country apart, I understood her intimately. Her role in the family was the caregiver, and no one was taking care of her. We bonded. I didn’t want to worry her by telling her what was up with me, but I knew she would know where Marita was. I shot her an email.

To: Beth Haggerty Steers

Subject: Marita?

Hi Beth, it’s cousin Jeannie! How are you? I just tried to call Marita and got her machine. Do you happen to know where she is or when she will be back?

Thanks!

Jeannie

Beth replied immediately, another way we eldest children are alike.

To: Jeannie Gaffigan

Subject: Re: Marita?

Cousin Jeannie! How are you? Mom should be at home. Sometimes that phone doesn’t ring, it’s always giving them problems. Is everything OK?

Love,

Cousin Beth

To: Beth Haggerty Steers

Subject: Re: Marita?

Hey! Thanks, I will try her again. I was just calling her because she’s a prayer warrior and I have some concerns about a medical thing that I’m dealing with. Hopefully it’s no big deal.

Love,

Cousin Jeannie

Then my phone rang. “Cousin Jeannie, what’s going on?” I guess Beth wasn’t going to let my cryptic message stand for itself.

“Well,” I said. I told her about the mass in my brain and how I couldn’t get anyone to tell me what to do or what was going on.

“Jeannie, you have to go to Mount Sinai. They are the best.”

“I think these neurosurgeons that I’m seeing are near NYU.”

“I’m sure they are good, too, but Mount Sinai is tops.” She then went on to describe her family’s special relationship with Mount Sinai. Of course, there was Anne’s long stay there during and at the end of her illness. Beth also had treatments at Mount Sinai herself and was back on the tennis court. Marita recently had lung surgery at Mount Sinai and loved all the doctors. “Mom knows absolutely everyone at Mount Sinai. She has connections. She’s like the mayor there.” I told her how I was very frustrated because I had to wait so long to even get in to see a doctor, and I was hesitant to call new doctors. “You need an inside push,” said Beth. “Marita will help you. Hey, I just remembered, my friend had something with her brain too. An aneurysm. What was her doctor’s name? Bederson. That’s it. He was terrific. Tops. You know, I have this strong feeling that you should go to Dr. Bederson.” What was an aneurysm? All these names and hospitals were just making me stressed.

“I really just want to call Marita because I know she has a direct line to heaven.”

Beth agreed. “Mom has a huge network. Her prayer group will all be praying for you. I’m going to drive over to her house and tell her to call you.” I thanked her profusely because I needed all the prayers I could get to release me from this limbo. Now that the spiritual battle was under way, I needed some science warriors as well. I remembered that my childhood friend John was a neurologist. He lived in Milwaukee, on Newberry Boulevard. A stone’s throw from Sky’s family.

John and I had been friends since grade school. In high school, he went to prom with my joined-at-the-hip BFF, Shana. I knew they wanted to go to prom together, but they were each too shy to bring it up to the other. Shy was one thing that I was not. Prom was coming fast, and someone had to make a move. I decided that person would be me. I remember the scene like it was yesterday. I was sixteen, and I was driving a red Toyota Corolla home from something on a weekend night. I had just dropped off the person in the passenger seat, leaving John and Shana in the back. They were each staring out their individual windows. I pulled over and turned toward the backseat to face them.

“Hey, Shana, are you going to prom?”

SHANA: I don’t know.

JEANNIE: John, are you going to prom?

JOHN: I don’t currently have any plans.

JEANNIE: Hey, I’ve got an idea! Why don’t the two of you go together?

And so, I asked them to prom. With each other. Now they are married with two kids. Yes, I take complete credit for their getting married. And partial credit for the kids. John ended up becoming a neurologist, which turned out to be very convenient for me—this wasn’t the first time I had been the beneficiary of his career choice.

In 2007, my sister walked into my dad’s office in Milwaukee to find him lying facedown on the floor and not responding. I was in New York, and I got a call that my dad was in the ER. No one knew what happened, but it appeared he’d had a stroke. I spent an hour on the phone, pacing around the apartment and trying to get information from members of my family. There was no cell service in the ER, so my siblings would have to go all the way outside to give me updates on the situation. They also had to translate medical gibberish. Even though I had no idea what was going on, it became clear that the people in the ER had no idea what was going on either. Jim was able to book us on a flight at 6 a.m. the next day. I was losing it. I had to wait eight hours to even get on a plane to see my father. Anything could happen. I asked Jim to help me pack. I saw him put his good navy suit in the suitcase.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Jim stopped packing and looked at me with an unusually grave expression. “Jeannie, I lost both my parents and you always have to be prepared for the worst.” I stared blankly at him for a moment before the reality of what he was implying sank in.

“You think my dad is going to die and you are packing a suit to wear to his funeral? Have you no faith? What kind of a monster are you?” Jim took the suit out of the bag and moved to hang it back in the closet. I was overwhelmed with emotion. “What the hell do you think you are doing? You don’t have the common decency to wear a suit to my father’s funeral? What kind of a monster are you?” Did I mention that Jim couldn’t win in this scenario?

I called Shana. Even though we lived half a country apart, that high school best-friend bond still held strong. She and I had been pregnant with our second children at the exact same time and often, through texts and emails, we would complain to each other about our workaholic husbands. John was at the hospital constantly and Jim was on the road constantly and we were home juggling the babies. This was a position neither of us thought we would be in: two strong women with vision and purpose in our own careers, home in a sea of dirty diapers and spit-up while our husbands were out pursuing their dreams. Shana understood me more than any person I’d met in my married life because if you knew me in high school, you would have voted me “Least Likely to Marry a Comedian Who Sucked All the Air Out of My Spotlight and Have Five Kids with Him.” She knew the frustration and helped me find meaning, joy, and humor in domestic chaos. That’s what BFFs do. When my dad was in the ER at Columbia Hospital in Milwaukee and I was helpless in New York, the first person I called was Shana.

“Hi, Shana! My dad is in the ER at Columbia and it appears that he may have had a stroke. I am not getting a lot of information from the ER doctors, so I was wondering if I could call John to see if he could find out what is going on.” At the time, John worked at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, round the clock. It was unlikely I would be able to reach him, but I suspected his wife could. We wives have that kind of power.

“Oh my God! Actually, I’m with John right now. It’s his one night off and we are having dinner at my parents’ house. Let me put him on with you.” I was astounded. Shana’s parents’ house was two blocks away from the ER where my dad lay unconscious. I spoke to John briefly, and he arrived at the ER within five minutes. He knew just what to do and was already acquainted with the neurology team at Columbia. John got my dad into the ICU and on the right medicine so he woke up without suffering any brain damage. To this day my father is John’s patient, and John is my family’s hero. Since then, I had tried not to reach out to John for anything except friendship and avoided asking him for medical advice. I compare people asking their doctor friends for medical advice to people at parties finding out Jim is a comedian and asking him to tell a joke.

This time, however, since I had a mass in my brain and John was a neurologist, I felt like it was okay to bother him.

I texted him:

I realized that although I knew a report existed, I didn’t have it. It was the secret property of the doctors. I knew the radiology center had sent it to Dr. Godin, who called me to give me the not-so-great news. I also knew that Dr. Godin had sent it to the elusive neurosurgery office, who needed it to make the appointment. It seemed that everyone had this report but me, and I was the only one who really cared about it. I called Dr. Godin’s assistant, Kurt, who informed me that the report would become available on the radiology center website portal. I gave John the login information. We waited several hours for the report to show up. Eventually I called the center. I found out that it could take forty-eight hours for reports to be posted for patient viewing. This seemed incredibly asinine, since the doctor had read the report to me hours earlier. Why would people in an office who did not have my potentially urgent medical condition have access to information that I didn’t? I called the doctor’s office. Kurt answered.

“Hi, Kurt. I assume you guys have my report since you read it, correct?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Can you email it to me?”

“It will be available soon for you to view on the portal.”

“But I need it now. Can’t you just send me my own report?” There was a beat of silence while he placed me on a brief hold, I assumed to consult with the doctor. Maybe it was because I was now on a first-name basis with Kurt, and sometimes humanity trumps bureaucracy, but for whatever reason, they broke protocol and sent me the report almost immediately. I forwarded it to John. He called me seconds later.

“It reads like you have a 6 cm mass on your posterior fossa, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense because the circumference of your brain stem in that area is about 3 cm. I would need to see the scan to make sense of this.”

I explained to him that I had the scan, several copies, in fact. Jim would run to FedEx and overnight a copy to him. When Jim got back, the kids were getting home from school and I had nothing for dinner, so I ordered pizzas. It was a spontaneous choice made from necessity, yet it was the absolutely perfect one. The joyful excitement caused by those three easy words, “Who wants pizza?” was a welcome distraction, so they didn’t notice that Jim and I were both secretly gripped with anxiety. We sat around the dinner table as we ate our pizza, and conducted our regular “best and worst things that happened to you today” interviews. Jack’s “worst thing” was, as usual, “this dorky interview,” a joke that never gets old. God, I love these kids. Everything they did around the table seemed ten times sweeter and funnier that night.

The laughter was interrupted by someone buzzing the door. It was one of our babysitters. With the unexpected whirlwind that turned our world upside down that day, Jim and I had totally forgotten that we were supposed to go out that evening. Jim was concerned about me and asked, “Do you want me to cancel us going to that film premiere?” He had recently been cast as a lead (that’s right, a lead—not a taxi driver or a funny friend) in a film. That night, we were invited to attend a premiere, with the director of Jim’s film, for another movie she’d produced.

“We can’t just cancel,” I said. There was no new information that was going to become available to us before tomorrow, so we went on with our regularly scheduled lives. Not that there was anything regularly scheduled in our lives, but we’d had this “date night” on the books for months. The kids would be in bed soon. Why stay home? We had God and science working on this. We were in limbo, so we might as well go out and have a rare fun date. Acting like nothing was wrong helped deal with my fear of the unknown. And it was an unknown. Maybe there was really nothing to fear. Besides, my friend Trish the makeup artist was on her way over to help me get ready, and I needed a blow-out while I still had my hair. We agreed not to say a word about the scan.

These Shoes Ain’t Made for Walkin’

Getting my hair and makeup done by Trish is always a fun break from the stresses of reality. We talk and gossip like old friends, because we are. Old friends. Not old old, but like longtime old. Note: Never call female friends “old.” Trish was the head of the makeup department on The Jim Gaffigan Show, and we have been through many a rough shoot and late night together. I was rarely in her chair, but I saw her transform people at 6 a.m. from looking like they could play the zombies on The Walking Dead to cover girls. She never caused any drama or stabbed anyone in the back, a rarity on a film set or in a hair and makeup trailer. “I’m Switzerland,” she would always say.

I have loved Trish since the first day I interviewed her for the department head job years ago. She brought her dog and a suitcase to the interview. She didn’t need the job; she was working on another series that was wrapping up its season, but she was curious about our show based on a big Catholic family living in the middle of New York City. Something about it felt familiar to her. Something about her felt familiar to me, as if I’d grown up with her. I bet you’re sensing a theme here—me responding to people I feel like I grew up with. I remember saying to her that Jim was either going to love her or be like, “Get this crazy lady with the dog away from me.”

She said, “Jim sounds exactly like my brother.” Ever since the show ended, Trish has been my go-to for all things beauty. Every special we shoot, I force her to travel to us and do Jim’s beard. She’s the only one who can take it on. “I can do beards!” she says.

But that day, as she was doing my hair and makeup in my office before the premiere, I tried to act normal, chatting about old stories, laughing about the stresses and complaints of everyday life, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was distracted, deep in thought. She stopped curling my lashes for a beat and stared at me. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing, why?” I lied.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “I get it if you don’t want to talk about it, but just know I’m here.” I debated saying something. I didn’t even know what was wrong, so where would I begin? What if the mass turned out to be a smudge on the MRI screen or something? Then I would feel really stupid.

“I’m just tired,” I said. It was the truth. I had been getting more and more tired over the past couple of years, but instead of resting, I just doubled my caffeine intake. It wasn’t normal “kids are exhausting” fatigue, but more like the feeling of being drained in pregnancy, and we’d already established that I was not pregnant. Most evenings, when everyone was settled I would just collapse. In fact, this was going to be the first night Jim and I had gone out together in months for something that was not work or an obligation. I’d been missing all the “moms’ night out” events at the schools because I was so zapped by day’s end. I cherished my “mom’s nights in.” Having five school-age kids is some kind of wonderful, but there is always something crazy going on. Many people with large families choose to homeschool their children because it is way more practical than dealing with multiple schedules and pickups. “It’s easier,” they say. I would never be able to homeschool. How do I know this? Because at night when everyone is home and has different assignments to work on, I get a little taste of what it would be like, and it is overwhelming and physically and emotionally draining. It’s like “Home Night School.” We hop from kid to kid, like other people go to bars, to answer questions, break up arguments, check math we don’t understand, listen to sometimes excruciating piano practice, and wipe spaghetti sauce off schoolwork sheets. Lately, I prefer the insanity of homework time to “free play,” though. I have renamed this activity “fight to the death to keep them off screens.” The obsession my kids have with getting on an iPad makes me pine for the days of picking hundreds of tiny Lego pieces out of the couch cushions.

Still, I prefer to be fighting the good fight at home. I love being with the kids even in chaos. My role as the family boss and problem solver becomes most apparent when I leave. Whenever I go out to an event at night, I can time my sigh of relaxed relief with an inevitable text from the babysitter or Jim that someone threw up, hit a sibling, said a curse word, or, even better, the water is off in the building or some other disaster only I can deal with. That night, however, we were going out, and no text or call from the babysitter could be about anything worse than what might be growing in my brain.

As Trish finished her transformative artistry on me, I ran into the bedroom to get my heels on. I have a shelf in my closet of great heels that I’ve accumulated for occasions over the years but that I’ve used less and less. They’re like a historical exhibit of my past social life. I probably had to dust them off, it had been so long since I’d worn them. I came back in the room, and Trish had her arms folded across her chest and was looking at me, concerned. Sky was typing away silently. “You can talk to me, Jeannie.” I looked at Sky, clicking away on the keyboard. Had he said something?

“All right,” I said. “This may be nothing, but an MRI revealed that I have something growing in my brain and I haven’t even had my follow-up appointment yet.” Trish gave me a big hug.

“Jeannie, you are one fierce lady. Whatever it is, I know you are going to crush it with both hands.”

I needed to hear that. I was fierce. I was strong. I was the girl who’d rescued a friend’s diamond bracelet out of a public toilet! I was going to get through this, come hell or high water. I am a fighter, and I was ready to kick some brain mass ass.

“The only people who know about this are you, Jim, Sky, and the doctors.”

“My lips are sealed,” she said. “And, by the way, I just asked Sky what was wrong with you and he straight-up lied right to my face, so you sure as hell don’t have to worry about him saying something!” Sky just gave a sheepish shrug. That’s right. Sheepish.

Jim and I left for the premiere in silence. As we walked down the steps of my apartment building to the street, I stumbled in the heels, grabbing the banister with both hands. It had been awhile since I’d walked down stairs in high heels. Jim broke the ice by joking about my shoes: “I just don’t get the heel thing. You literally can barely walk in them.”

“They are not made for walking,” I quipped back. “They are made for standing next to you and looking hot, so, you’re welcome!” I stepped down another stair and grasped on for dear life.

Jim looked at my feet and shook his head. “Those are ridiculous!”

I’d gotten them for a superchic ’70s party three years ago and I had great memories of wearing them; we’d made a great team. They were like an old gal pal. I defended the shoes: “These are spectacular!”

“So are stilts at the circus,” Jim reminded me.

Film premieres are odd events, really. There are no separate fancy theaters for premieres. They are held in regular movie theaters with moderate inclines and sticky cup holders. Jim pointed out that the one we went to that night was actually the same theater where we’d taken our kids to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The only difference between going to a movie theater and going to a movie theater for a premiere is that, for the premiere, you are overdressed. Definitely too overdressed to sit in a chair and watch a movie.

We sat with Danielle, a close friend of mine who was the production manager on The Jim Gaffigan Show. When I saw her, I felt compelled to tell her what was going on, but I decided against it. I was not going to let this scary secret I was carrying around ruin anyone’s night. Except Trish’s, and Sky’s, and John’s… but that was it!

I barely remember watching the film. I sat silent in the darkness, unable to focus on anything but the insidious mass in my brain. Was Jim thinking about it too? I tried to read him with psychic energy while pressing my knee against his. He reached over and took my hand. My mind was swirling. Every so often the audience would laugh, so I would force a guffaw even though I had no idea what I was laughing at. I didn’t want to be rude. We both sat looking ahead at the screen until the film ended. When I stood up to exit, I felt my legs give out. I could barely stand up. This is peculiar, I thought. I said to Jim, “You guys go ahead. I’ll meet you in the lobby. I have to check my messages.” The screening room was on an extra-steep slope even for the normal slant of a theater. To get to the exit, I had to hug the wall and slowly put one foot in front of the other like I was totally inebriated.

I’m sure that’s what the rush of exiting audience members thought as they pushed past me, eager to get to the after-party. “Wow, that girl got wasted before the film. Sad.” I let people by. I felt stupid and out of shape. I wondered silently to myself why suddenly I couldn’t walk in heels. Balance was never a problem. Could it be I was getting old? Connecting the dizziness to my recent diagnosis never even crossed my thoughts. If it did, my vain fear of aging drowned out the efforts of my logical mind.

I have to go out more, or at least wear heels around the house during homework mania, I thought. I checked myself for past judgments of the “hot moms” who wore heels to drop-off. They had more practice. I bet they weren’t leaning on walls at movie premieres.

When I found Jim in the lobby I was relieved to finally stand on flat ground, but I still felt dizzy. I found a column to lean against. Jim and Danielle noticed my unsteadiness.

“Are you all right?” they asked.

“It’s these heels!” I showed them off. Jim was right. I was a clown on stilts, only clumsier.

Getting to the postpremiere party in New York City is always an adventure. Sure, all the actors and film folk have cars waiting, but everyone else is on their own. Essentially it turns into a hundred people Ubering, Lyfting, or cabbing from the same destination. It has the chaos and charm of the American evacuation from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.

“No, I’m good,” I replied. “I want you to have a good time. Is that three flights?”

The rest of the night, I was obsessed with finding a place to sit. I wanted one place to park myself and not have to move. Ironically, the medical issue was totally “out of my head” as the heel issue dominated my every thought. Once I sat down at the after-party, I found myself scheming about how I could just stay in that same spot for the entire night. I wondered if the people in the club would notice. I could just pretend I was a statue, like The Thinker, but in high heels and sitting on a lounge couch, until a guy sweeping up in the morning kicked me out.

When it was finally time to go, I just took off the heels and walked down the stairs, blending in with the drunken crowd. Though totally sober, I was so off balance in those heels that it was safer for me to walk barefoot through the streets of midtown Manhattan. Who cared if I might step on a dirty needle? Anything was better than those heels. If I’d had a kingdom, I would have given it all for a pair of ratty house slippers!