Local chimney sweep Chester J. Lampwick is waiting to hear the undisguised truth about his medical test results. But his primary care physician will only communicate them to him like he is a child in the Care Bear universe rather than a hardened 45-year veteran of the chimney game. Due to a cluster of chronic symptoms, Lampwick’s PCP referred him for several weeks’ worth of testing and visits to specialists, only to then withhold a straight-faced prognosis when he found the results too brutal to state aloud.
“Suppose you have Father Rabbit and Mama Bunny living in a cottage in the woods,” the physician said. “And they reproduce all the time, at such a rapid pace that the whole forest around them is always clean and safe because of the little bunnies running around taking care of it. And in their cottage they have a chimney. One day, Papa Bunny decides that he likes the smell of burning sticks, so he starts burning them all the time.”
The physician starts making dramatic hand gestures to illustrate his point. “The smoke clouds go aaaaallll around his cottage, then aaaaallll around the woods. But now the little bunnies are living in smoke, and it makes them angry and rabid. They stop taking care of the forest and start attacking the healthy bunnies, so they get rabid too. Now Papa Rabbit and Mama Bunny aren’t producing enough healthy bunnies anymore. All the bunnies have changed from good to bad, and suddenly there are no bunnies left who can save the forest — only bunnies who want to do mean, mean things to it.”
“Just give it to me straight, doctor!” Lampwick interjected. “Will I be able to go back to my chimneys?”
“Let me finish!” the physician replied. “Now, these bunnies are like cells. And this cottage, this cottage is your lungs. Meanwhile the woods are the rest of your body. And this rabid bunny disease, that’s called cancer. No, Chester, I’m sorry, but you will not be sweeping any more chimneys. I expect you have less than a year to live.”