A week later, Brian sucked in a deep breath outside the door of the clinic. He didn’t want to walk through it, terrified of what awaited him inside. But after standing there for a few seconds, he finally put on his mask, pulled open the door marked Atlanta Dermatology Center, and went in.
“Brian Littrell,” he said in a low voice to the woman at the front desk. “I have an appointment.”
“Of course, Mr. Littrell,” the receptionist replied, sliding a clipboard across the counter. “Please find a place to sit and fill out these forms first. We’ll call you back when we’re ready for you.”
“Okay.” Brian took the clipboard over to a seat in an empty corner of the waiting room. With shaking hands, he completed the paperwork. He returned it to the desk, then sat back down to wait.
He looked surreptitiously around the waiting room, carefully avoiding eye contact with the other patients. There was a wide range of them waiting, from pimply teenagers to elderly people with bandages taped to their withered faces, but he didn’t see many other men his age. I don’t belong here, he thought to himself. I’m not like them. This can’t be my life.
After finding the lump on his shoulder, Leighanne had made the appointment for him to have it looked at. He wished his wife was sitting next to him now to calm his nerves. She would have wrapped her warm hand around his, reassuring him without words that everything would be all right. But, due to COVID restrictions, she couldn’t accompany him into the clinic. He would have to face this alone.
“Brian Littrell?”
He cringed when he heard the nurse call his name, quickly looking around to see how many people had recognized it. His eyes naturally went to the teenagers first, but none of them even looked up from their phones. In fact, the only reaction he saw was from a middle-aged woman who raised her eyebrows, watching him over the top of the paperback she was reading.
Right… most of our fans aren’t teens anymore, he reminded himself as he stood up. God, we’re getting old.
He followed the nurse through a door and down a short hallway to a small exam room. She asked him a few questions, then gave him a gown to change into. “The doctor will be in to see you soon,” she said as she left the room, letting him undress in privacy.
Brian stripped down to his briefs before putting on the backless gown. Then he sat on the exam table, nervously swinging his legs as the paper cover crinkled underneath him.
After what felt like forever, a woman in a white coat finally came in. “Hi, I’m Dr. Sasek,” she introduced herself. “How are you doing today, Mr. Littrell?”
“Fine, thanks,” he answered hoarsely, his throat feeling dry.
The doctor glanced down at the clipboard in her hand. “I see you’re here for a skin check?”
Brian nodded. “Yeah… my wife found a suspicious mole on my shoulder and thought I should get it checked out.”
“Better safe than sorry, right?” said Dr. Sasek, setting her clipboard down on the counter. “I’m glad you came in.” She disinfected her hands with a pump of sanitizer from the dispenser on the wall, then pulled on a pair of sterile gloves. “Let’s have a look. Go ahead and take off your gown, please.”
Feeling self-conscious, Brian slowly removed his gown. Dr. Sasek examined him carefully from head to toe, taking extra time to inspect the spot on his right shoulder. “Do you use sunscreen?” she asked as she poked and prodded.
“Not as often as I probably should,” he admitted, feeling his face heat up.
“I can tell. You have sun damage,” she scolded him gently, running her fingers over his rough, freckled skin. “You really should get in the habit of applying sunscreen with an SPF of at least fifteen before you go outside. Think of it as another part of your daily skin care routine, like moisturizing. It will not only provide you with protection from the sun, but reduce lines and wrinkles.”
What skin care routine? he had been wondering, but he nodded like he knew what she was talking about. “That’s good advice, Doc. I’ll do that.”
The dermatologist leaned over, using a tool that resembled a fancy, lighted magnifying glass to take a closer look at the mole on his shoulder. “Your wife was right to be concerned,” she said after a few minutes. “This mole has a raised, irregular border, which makes me think it may be malignant. We’ll need to do a biopsy to find out for sure.”
Hearing the word “malignant” made Brian’s heart beat faster. “A biopsy?” he repeated. “So you’re saying it could be… cancer?”
“It could be. If it is, a skin biopsy will confirm it.”
“What does that entail?” Brian asked. “Is it like surgery? Will you have to put me to sleep?”
“Oh, no,” said Dr. Sasek, smiling. “I’ll do a shave biopsy, which means scraping off the top two layers of skin tissue with a blade to send to the lab for evaluation. It’s a simple procedure that takes less than ten minutes. I can do it today if you’re willing to wait a little longer.”
“O-okay,” he whispered, his voice catching in his throat.
“Give me a few minutes to get things set up, and we’ll get started.” Dr. Sasek breezed out of the room, leaving Brian alone again.
As he looked around, a poster on the wall caught his eye. With wide eyes, he read the words “skin cancer” and studied the pictures of ugly brown moles that were actually malignant melanoma while he waited for the doctor to return. His palms began to sweat, his heart pounding harder with each passing minute.
Finally, Dr. Sasek returned, accompanied by the nurse, who helped her set up for the procedure. Brian shuddered when he saw the sharp instruments laid out on a stainless steel tray next to the table. “How much is this going to hurt?” he asked nervously.
“Don’t worry. We’ll numb the area with a local anesthetic, so you shouldn’t feel any pain,” Dr. Sasek assured him, wiping his shoulder with an alcohol wipe. The smell reminded him of having an IV inserted in the hospital before his open heart surgery, one of the scariest times in his life. He had worked so hard to get back into good shape after that. Now, twenty-two years later, he was facing another health crisis.
Cancer. The word buzzed and flickered inside his mind like a neon sign, seeming increasingly foreign rather than familiar. He couldn’t have cancer. Cancer was something that happened to other people, not him.
Dr. Sasek picked up a syringe from the tray. “Little pinch here,” she said as she inserted it into his shoulder. Brian hissed in a sharp breath through his teeth when he felt its point impale his skin, followed by a rush of cold as the doctor injected its contents. His shoulder began to tingle as the anesthetic set in. “How are you feeling, Mr. Littrell?”
“Fine,” he lied, trying to be brave like he and Leighanne had always told Baylee to be. “And you can call me Brian.” The use of his last name felt too formal, somehow. He hoped her calling him by his first name would make him feel more comfortable.
“Can you feel me touching you, Brian?” Dr. Sasek asked, running her gloved fingers over his shoulder. It helped.
“No,” he answered, relaxing a little.
“Great. We’ll go ahead and get started then.” Brian saw a flash of gleaming metal as she picked up the scalpel that had been lying on the tray. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth as she used it to slice through his skin. “All done,” he heard the doctor say a few minutes later and opened his eyes to see a Band-Aid taped over the spot on his shoulder. “Keep this covered until it scabs over. It will take a few weeks to fully heal.”
Brian looked cautiously at the bandaged wound. “Will I have a scar?”
“A small one, yes, but no worse than the mole you had there to begin with.” Dr. Sasek stripped off her gloves. “I’ll send the tissue sample to the lab and call you when I have the results, probably sometime in the next couple of weeks.”
Brian’s eyes widened as he imagined the agony of waiting two more weeks to find out whether or not he had cancer. But he forced himself to thank the doctor before he got dressed and left the clinic in a daze.
Leighanne was waiting for him in the car. “There you are, Husband!” she chirped, looking up from her phone when he climbed behind the wheel. “That took longer than I thought it would! What did the doctor have to say?”
Brian could barely find his voice to answer her. “Sh-She thinks it could be… cancer,” he croaked. “She did a biopsy.” He rolled up his sleeve to show her the Band-aid on his shoulder.
“Oh, you poor baby!” Leighanne cooed, leaning over to kiss it lightly. “Does it hurt?”
“Not yet, but she said it might when the numbing wears off.”
“Maybe I should drive,” said Leighanne, looking at him with concern. “You’re as white as a sheet.”
“That might be best,” Brian admitted. He still felt a little shaky as they both got out of his truck to trade places. Once he was buckled into the passenger seat, he turned back to Leighanne. “But, baby… what if I do have cancer?”
“Then we’ll deal with it together, the same way we’ve done with everything else in life,” Leighanne replied confidently, reaching out to take his hand. “You don’t have to face this alone. But whatever happens, I have faith that it’ll all be fine in the end.” She squeezed his hand tightly. “You’ve always been a fighter, Brian Thomas Littrell. Nothing’s gonna knock you down for long.”
“Thanks, baby,” he murmured, trying to muster up his own faith.
On the drive home from Atlanta, he snapped a photo through the windshield of the freeway stretching in front of him as the sun shone through the gathering storm clouds. He applied a black and white filter and posted it on Instagram with the caption, “Sometimes life throws us a curve ball, and we don’t know where the roads leads….. always hoping and expecting through FAITH….. that we will be there when the road ends…… #roadtrip.”
He rubbed his shoulder, which had begun to throb. Yet, on the inside, he still felt numb.
***