Contemplation in the Cancer Clinic

Sitting in the waiting room, waiting for the skin cancer biopsy reports. Nice lounge, recliner chairs and beverages, big screen TV with Netflix.

Another new experience. Hospital waiting rooms are better in some ways, though, despite being crowded and plain, because if you’re there it’s an emergency. I’ve been in them enough this year to feel I know what I’m talking about.

Still positive, all three of them. Another round of cutting. Another wait for lab results.

So much waiting this year. A bit of the usual, in airports and waiting for someone to arrive for an appointment, but most of it has been medical waiting, involving physical discomfort. It’s not the waiting I’ve written about before.

The first wait actually started on New Year’s Eve, in a clinic. Then a week of waiting for the gastroenteritis to go away, which it didn’t, because it was actually a ruptured appendix. Waiting again in a clinic, waiting for scans, waiting to see a doctor, waiting to see the surgeon. Waiting for more scans and surgery, then waiting, waiting, waiting for the pain to go away.

Waiting for biopsy results from my first basal cell carcinoma, which turned out to be melanoma, so waiting for more surgery and more results— clear this time.

Waiting for more scans to say I was clear to fly, then coming home to Canada and waiting for all the same scans, appointments and biopsy results. CT scan showing a new problem that required several more procedures. Oh, and waiting to see the cardiologist, after avoiding it for four years while I was in Barbados. Then more tests.

What else? Waiting to see the medical geneticist, then a long wait for genetic testing results. Waiting to see a doctor who specializes in Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, but that has to wait until the cardiologist shares his findings. Still waiting for the MRI that was ordered after the CT scan, colonoscopy, and ultrasound guided needle aspiration.

Then I broke my arm. Three emergency room visits that averaged 5 hours, three orthopedic surgeon appointments, and waits for X-Rays at all of them. Now waiting for the physio exercises to do their job.

And while all this was going on, we moved, and my son died.

So if you haven’t seen my usual plethora of happy travel posts, that’s why!

I won’t say that I’ve become good at waiting, but I am used to it. I endure it. And when I think I can’t take anymore, I cry, or sleep, and then get up and do it some more. I think of all the people in the world who are also waiting, and enduring far worse than this.

Bit by bit, it clears. The heart issue is stable and will not prevent me from getting travel insurance. I will be monitored with annual MRIs, biennial echocardiograms and biannual dermatologist visits. All the skin cancer has been removed and the stitches will be out in a couple of weeks. My range of motion in my arm is good and strength is returning. My EDS is the least serious form. I think of how lucky I was to have years of nothing other than annual checkups.

My body is healing but my heart is still broken, and between the two I don’t know if I will ever regain my ebullience.

My joy may be tempered, quieter, but I will still try to live my life with all my heart.

On with the brave travels.