February 2021

We have the same birthday. I wanted to take it as a sign that the bump on my neck was not a tumor or cancer. But I had inherited the ability to worry myself into a corner. It was hard to discharge the anxiety that had been festering since I discovered the mass while stroking my neck one sleepless night just after Christmas. I called it my "Trump Bump." The pathologist loved that. I told her I might write about it. But that was a week before the birthday coincidence. I believe. I had certainly lost the ability to navigate time since the Trump Bump appeared. 

About the birthday… The young woman devoid of any bumps, but definitely wearing a mask, stood in front of me as I waited on a meticulously clean chair in the cavernous blue room. I had glimpsed a giant set of figures, an impressive sculpture, as I was escorted to my chair having waited in line to answer the all too familiar litany of questions about coughing and chills as the young man, also masked, discharged his list rapidly, without hesitation.

The questions from the young woman's laptop included confirming my name and birthdate. And then the coincidence, "We have the same birthday, " she said, still focused on her screen.

"Have you ever met anyone with your birthday?" I queried, wanting to offer something just a bit more personal as I imagined her job was long and repetitive.

"No, " she said, as her eyes found mine. I flattered myself that she was smiling behind her mask.

Not much time for lounging as I was soon directed into the next cavernous space. It looked something like a school cafeteria. Long tables, chairs and bright lights. The lunch monitors were nurses and at least one doctor. He was an anesthesiologist who had volunteered to inject doses of Moderna into our arms. I wondered if he would be assigned to me if it turned out to be cancer or some kind of tumor. If I would need surgery to dissolve the Trump Bump and restore me to sanity. I almost told him, showed him, but quickly realized he was here for a different purpose.

As I waited, almost lounging, for the requisite 15 minutes to make sure nothing blocked the Moderna's path into my immune system, I looked around at the other kids. It was quiet for a school cafeteria as bits of conversation among the staff dissolved around me. A huge screen advertised that one could schedule a second vaccine by logging into “My Chart.” I had been logging in constantly since discovering the Trump Bump. Now waiting anxiously, at best, for the results of the biopsy.

This was only Monday. I believed that sharing a birthday with a total stranger who happened to be standing in front of me to take vital statistics in a cavernous, blue room before getting a vaccine that no one had heard of less than a year ago was the coincidence that would dissolve my anxiety and restore my sanity.

Days later there was another coincidence. The kind and smart doctor who was at first a stranger was the same tall, masked man who still cared for a close friend. The day before he reported that there was no cancer and no tumor, my friend shared the coincidence of our having the same incarnation of the higher power to offer me the good news that immediately blocked any more worry that the Trump Bump would kill me.

I was restored to sanity.  I sometimes wonder if the young, masked woman will meet anyone else who shares our birthday. Will she remember me among all the strangers who will enter the blue space to join the lunch line and wait patiently for their dose of hope?