6. The Waiting Game

It had been 7 days.  It had barely sunk in.

‘We have your tests results back and it does show cancer, early breast cancer’

Seven days since I heard those words.  Seven days of telling family and working out who to tell and processing the news ourselves.

We had an appointment at the Breast Clinic at the hospital for the Thursday before Easter.

I can’t begin to describe my feelings as we walked into a public hospital waiting room.  There were four rows of chairs, back to back, all full.  We had to queue at reception while the receptionist dealt with a long, complicated call.  But she was patient and did it well, I thought.

We took a seat and waited.  And waited.  My kindle that I grabbed on the way out the door was nearly flat I discovered.  I didn’t enjoy reading about the psychology of weight loss and my new book I hoped to read about living in France hadn’t downloaded.

People poured into the waiting room in groups of four or five and queued at the reception window. It was almost as if a bus had arrived, or the slow moving lifts spat them out and deposited them in waiting rooms around the hospital in groups.

Some seemed to know what they were doing, others nervously clutched pieces of paper or x-rays.

Doctors and various staff called out from doors and corridors.  One staff member was wearing rabbit ears.  She was obviously attempting to add some fun at Easter to a rather serious location.  She carted piles of folders around with medical records and information in them.  I guess I now had a file and a number and was in the system, generating paperwork.

I glimpsed the surgeon I saw at Breast screen who examined me and ‘couldn’t feel anything’ after my ultrasound showed there was certainly something there that shouldn’t have been.

A kindly lady came and went.  She had a reassuring face and a warm smile.

I started to feel like an assembly line piece waiting to be collected, examined and dropped into a chute.  Public hospitals are old, worn and tired.  Some staff looked the same.  From time to time a young person burst through the door, wearing hospital ID and it all seemed a bit more normal.

I studied people around me.  There were old, slow ladies with walking frames and weary expressions.  Some ethnic ladies with sons or daughters in tow.  An anxious looking woman arrived with her young heavily tattooed escort, presumably her son.  He looked out of place and slightly uncomfortable.  My mortality hit me as I waited, my anxiety building as I tried in vain to stay calm.  I needed to go to the toilet desperately, but surely they would call me next?

I felt fear rising, I wanted to get up and run away.  Run away from this diagnosis that was still surreal.  Away from these people, the old ladies, the blank faces, the uncomfortable looking males.

I couldn’t catch my husband’s eye as he leaned on the wall behind me.  In desperation I sent him a text.  ‘I need to go to the loo, desperately’. He came over and minded my seat while I went.

We had been waiting and hour and 15 minutes.  People who arrived after us came and went.  The lady with the kind face spoke to women sitting behind me.  She knew them and asked after their welfare.  They laughed together and cracked jokes.  I wasn’t sure this was the ‘sisterhood’ I wanted to belong to or was ready for.

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