Hurry Up, I’m Waiting

The doctor broke the news. I have cancer. Now there are countless other tests I need to diagnosis my stage/progression of the disease.  I want to have the tests done yesterday. This is URGENT, isn’t it? My doctor’s assistant called with my appointments all within the 3-4 weeks or so. WHAT?? “I have cancer I can’t wait a month for a scan.”

 

What is this? The machines are not available? The scanning schedules are full. What am I supposed to do? Am I just suppose to wait?? My disease could be spreading. I think I can feel it doing so. I can’t sleep. I could be dying.

 

I get “my friend and family team” to leap into action. I travel over an hour to an available scanner.  “I have cancer dam it.”

I enter the waiting room of available scanner- the room is literally packed with people, some of them yellow. I suddenly get “it”. I am NOT special. I am not the only one with cancer. You feel like the only one because your friends and family make it seem so. But even here, everyone needs the scanner. I must wait.

 

My doctor did not think 3weeks or a month would matter all that much. I was in panic mode. When does 3 weeks matter?

 

I got good a waiting. Waiting for the scanners availability, waiting for results to be read, waiting for doctors to call and share results, waiting for opinions, waiting for nurses to deliver my medication, waiting for call backs, waiting for insurance companies to answer the phone.

 When time was so precious, when I just wanted to sprint like Carl Lewis and make it all happen. I had to wait.