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Isaac Asimov's Thyroid Cancer Story

The Story

Isaac Asimov, PhD., (1920-1992) noted science-fiction writer and generally incredibly prolific author (with well over 500 books published in his lifetime), had papillary carcinoma of the thyroid. On December 16, 1971, at the age of 52, a palpable and visible lump was noted at his physical exam by his internist. A radioactive iodine scan on January 10, 1972 showed that the nodule was cold, and Dr. Asimov had a right thyroidectomy on February 15, 1972. His follow-up treatment consisted of a lifelong suppressive course of thyroid hormone. I am happy to report that that is the end of the story. Dr. Asimov survived twenty more years with no thyroid problems to speak of, and eventually succumbed to unrelated causes (kidney failure and associated cardiovascular disease) at the age of 72.(*see note)

I have a copy of his memoirs, entitled I. Asimov, which is a 578-page paperback. He spends exactly three pages talking about the cancer. After my thyroid nodule was discovered, and since my diagnosis of papillary carcinoma, this has been a great comfort to me. When things threaten to get overwhelming, or I start to lose perspective, I take a deep breath and tell myself, "This is just a three-page incident in my five-hundred page life."

For anyone who would like to learn more about Dr. Asimov's thyca story, I would heartily recommend the article "Doctor, Doctor, Cut My Throat" which appears in his book The Tragedy of the Moon. This should be easy to get at your local library. Dr. Asimov's witty and unselfconscious style are a pleasure to read. There is also the three-page passage in I. Asimov, and a slightly longer version in his earlier autobiography In Joy Still Felt. The three versions are basically the same, although differing in approach and level of detail. If you are an Asimov fan, or are obsessed with thyca (and I, alas, am both :-), you may want to read all three.

My Comments

• "Doctor, Doctor, Cut My Throat" is the article Dr. Asimov refers to in I. Asimov when he writes:
  

  "The operation gave me occasion to prove how delightful it was to be a writer. Carl charged me $1500 for the operation (well worth it) and I later wrote up a funny article about it (including my little verse) and charged $2000 for the piece. Ha, ha, and how do you like that, you old medical profession, you? (I was happier than ever that I hadn't been accepted by any medical school.)"

• I noticed that the abovementioned article does not use the words "cancer" or "carcinoma," referring instead to his "nodule" and the "undisciplined growth" of his thyroid tissue. Now, Dr. Asimov was as frank as they come and his life is an open book. Both the autobiography and the memoirs use the term "cancer." I suspect the editorial red pen was at work on the article, rather than any reticence on Dr. Asimov's part. As I remember the seventies (bearing in mind that I was 7 years old in 1972), cancer was the awesome bogeyman of the time, spoken of in hushed tones or circumlocuted as "the big C". Something like AIDS was in the eighties. How times have changed, and much for the better, I think.
• More in the "how times have changed" department: For his right thyroidectomy, Dr. Asimov went in to the hospital on February 12, 1972, and checked out one week later, to the hour, on February 19, 1972. I don't know about you all, but I went in to the hospital on the morning of my right thyroidectomy in 1997, and checked out the next day. (Then I went back two weeks later, checking in on the morning of my left thyroidectomy, and again checking out the next day.) :-)
• Yet more changing times: Dr. Asimov describes how his thyroid hormone supplements are derived from the thyroid glands of slaughtered livestock. The pre-Synthroid era! (the pre-CJD era, as well... beware of laughing cows?)
• An etymological note: my dictionary says that the word "thyroid" comes from the Greek for "oblong sheild," but Dr. Asimov's article is the only place I've seen an explanation of the derivation. He writes, "This is in reference to the large, oblong shields carried by Homeric and pre-Homeric warriors. These had a notch on top where the head might cautiously emerge to survey the situation. There is just such a notch on top of the Adam's apple, hence the name."

Note Added August 10, 2002

It was recently revealed by Dr. Asimov's widow, Dr. Janet Jeppson Asimov, in the new biography It's Been a Good Life, that his death was in fact due to AIDS. In 1983 he had triple bypass surgery and received blood transfusions containing HIV. (Ironic that the city he loved was the cause of his death; doubtless nowhere else in the United States had a higher incidence of HIV in the blood supply than New York at that time.) As Dr. Jeppson Asimov states, after his triple bypass "the next day he had a high fever... only years later, in hindsight, did we realize that the post transfusion HIV infection had taken hold." In the mid-Eighties Dr. Jeppson Asimov noted that her husband had some AIDS symptoms and brought them to the attention of his internist and cardiologist, who pooh-poohed and refused to test him. He was finally tested in February of 1990, prior to further surgery, when he presented HIV-positive with his T cells half the normal level. The astonishing fact of Dr. Asimov's AIDS was kept secret at the advice of his physicians - they apparently strong-armed him in his sickbed with the threat that his wife would be shunned as a suspected PWA as well. The secret was kept not till after Dr. Asimov's death in 1992, nor till after the death of his widow and daughter (indeed they are still alive), but till after the deaths of his physicians (see Dr. Jeppson Asimov's letter to Locus magazine). You can draw your own conclusions, but that makes me feel that it was primarily the physicians' reputations that were being protected by this secret.

Bibliography

1. Asimov, Isaac. The Tragedy of the Moon.
   Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1973. Chapter 12, entitled "Doctor, Doctor, Cut My Throat" is both a personal description of his thyca experience and a serious science essay on the thyroid gland and the endocrine system in general. The introduction to the book also contains references to his experience with the thyroidectomy.
2. Asimov, Isaac. I. Asimov, a Memoir.
   Bantam Books, New York, 1995. This was written two years before his death and is an overview of his entire life. The chapter entitled "Hospitalizations" reviews his diagnosis and thyroidectomy.
3. Asimov, Isaac. In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov 1954-1978.
   Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1980. The time span in the title, by the way, refers to the period covered by the autobiography, not to Dr. Asimov's life! Being a prolific writer, his autobiography up to 1978 was published in two volumes, neither of which is small... The story here is told chronologically, with other life events mingled in as they happen.
4. Asimov, Isaac; Asimov, Janet Jeppson, ed. It's Been a Good Life.
   Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2002. Dr. Jeppson Asimov assembled this book from pieces of the autobiographies cited above, as well as a smattering of excerpts from personal correspondence and an expansion of her original epilogue to I. Asimov.
5. http://www.asimovonline.com/ is a good general Asimov page, from which you can find any Asimov books or further information.

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Last updated on August 10, 2002.