The waiting room

The phone rings, and my heart skips a beat. I am waiting for someone to call with the results from my latest exam.

It all started with some unidentified spots on a pelvic MRI. «With your history», said the doctor, «it’s best to do a PET scan to see what it is». My first thought was that they were overreacting, but I understood the caution. I was not anxious about doing the PET scan; I really thought nothing would come of it.

A few hours after the exam, I got a call from my oncologist. Time stopped for a moment when I realized what she was saying. When the seconds started flowing again, they ran at a different pace. On the PET scan, the images of my body had lit up like a Christmas tree, and the doctor said that they were probably metastases, in my bones, from the breast cancer treated seven years earlier. She added that, if that were the case, there were new targeted therapies with good results and fewer side effects than chemotherapy. The next step was to do a hip biopsy to confirm the diagnosis.

I felt things shifting inside me. Something was coming, and I had to become the person that would deal with it. A woman-with-a-terminal-disease persona, who was going to have to learn to navigate these waters, to keep going in the midst of the storm, and to wait.

That afternoon, I waited to book the biopsy, and when that was over, I waited for the biopsy results.

When the results showed no cancer cells, my new persona became confused - perhaps it had been created prematurely. After some more tests, the team decided that a new biopsy was needed. I waited once more.

Waiting isn't a blank canvas. In those first moments when I was counting the days and the hours, waiting came with a gray cloak that dyed everything it touched with questions and to-do lists.

If I really am ill, how much time do I have left? What am I going to do with that time? What books do I want to read or re-read? What trips do I want to take? Who do I want to be with? When is it time to do a Swedish cleanse and start getting rid of the things I accumulated?

The counting-the-hours moments that came after were filled with other questions, other lists.

I learned to compartmentalize, to create room for the wait to happen separated from the rest, from the moments that run from when I wake up until I go to sleep. I recognize the anxiety coming, welcome it and let it inhabit that waiting room until it fades away. Maybe I'm letting those moments run parallel so that they don't permeate and contaminate each other. 

Some things help, like focusing on things outside that space, and being with loved ones. Writing these words has become a way to move focus into a space where it all takes on a new meaning.

It works… on some days. On others, the focus returns to the waiting room: I stay at home, I wallow, I watch movies and play sudoku, dragging the hours until it’s time to sleep.

The waiting room became a fixed feature, a place where I count the minutes, days, months, and years. I try not to linger on it.

MRI: Magnetic resonance imaging

PET: Positron emission tomography

Photo by Kirill Ermakov