A tale of two tumors

The privilege of not going to the doctor

Last week, while working on the hospital ship in Dakar, I met a man I’ll call Amadou.

Amadou is from Senegal. Like many of the patients I see on that hospital ship, he has a tumor. Unlike many, however, he doesn’t have a very big tumor.

He’s had it for about five years, this benign overgrowth of fat cells called a lipoma. In that time, it’s grown to about the size of an apricot pit.