Have a character whose friends snoop on his phone and hear a voicemail from a cancer center saying he's positive. They assume it's cancer, but he hides that it *is* actually cancer, and tells them it's something else.
You may want to talk to someone that works in the field. I'm not sure if that's the type of information that would be delivered over a voicemail. I'm assuming with the right forms and signatures it might be legal, but still not sure if most clinics would deliver it over a voicemail. Also, cancer diagnoses can be complex and a simple 'positive' may not tell the whole story. Even if a particular tumor is malignant, etc., there's still a lot of other factors like whether it can be removed, if the cancer already spread, etc.
Why does he lie? If he's just trying to make his friend not worry, he could always claim it's something easily treatable, like, the mole on his back they've already removed was a melanoma (skin cancer). I do agree that it would strike me as kind of odd that they would leave that info in a voice mail, however.
Honestly, whether they'd give the information or not isn't really something I'm *too* worried about. Something just say "you're positive," and not even mentioning the cancer. As it stands, I currently have his coworkers hearing just that his doctor is calling from the cancer center, and that he's positive. The MC lies and says it's Factor II Mutation, which runs in his family. Two of the others start a big charity for their own selfish reasons, and really exaggerate the illness that their "dying" friend has. The irony being, of course, that he actually does have cancer, unbeknownst to them. I'm just not sure if I want the lie to be something so relatively unknown to audiences. Though, maybe a simple (small) exposition of "It's a blood-clotting disorder that runs in the family" would suffice. I just wonder if there's a type of cancer that's serious enough to freak the MC out into thinking he's dying, but doesn't come with all the financial and physical consequences (like being sick all the time, having to get chemo, etc.).
Well, he claims it's something else that's easily treatable, but not another related to cancer or whatever. He says it's Factor II Mutation, a blood-clotting disorder that runs in his family. This is what prompts another of my main characters (think Abed) to carry out his X-Men fantasy.
You can leave a confidential voice mail if you get the person's consent to do so ahead of time. But I usually don't leave "positive" results because generally you would want to talk to the person at that time. And I tell them if I say "call" to not assume the worst, it could be something else like the lab needs more blood or something. If on the other hand the positive result is expected and you've already talked to the patient about it, you can leave such a voice mail confirming what the patient already expected. There are all kinds of positive tests one can get from a cancer clinic like a genetic predisposition but not the actual cancer. You could get a colonoscopy and the polyps removed then get sent to pathology for a microscopic exam. If the doctor is sure they got all the 'margins' of a suspicious polyp then a positive test might only mean the next colonoscopy will be in a year instead of 5-7 years. Your character could say they had a positive polyp but that it has already been removed.
Thanks for the insider perspective, I appreciate it! Now, from your experience, are there ever many forms of cancer that are serious and rely greatly on insurance, but aren't necessarily a death sentence and have tons of physical symptoms? Cancer is kinda just to *force* my main character to stay at his place of work to keep his health insurance, but I'm not really going for the whole always severely immunosuppressed/bald head from chemo type of thing. It'll kinda just be something that passively goes on over time over the series (it's a TV show), whereas most episodes will just be wacky and humorous, like Community and Superstore.
I can only think of breast cancer off the top of my head but there are others. You should be able to do some Google research to find others. These articles on cancer as a chronic disease should help. https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2015/04/30/looking-at-cancer-as-a-chronic-illness/ https://www.cancer.org/treatment/survivorship-during-and-after-treatment/long-term-health-concerns/cancer-as-a-chronic-illness.html
