It’s Breast Cancer Awareness month and the waiting room is packed. The pink ribbons the staff wear scream at us – this might be for you today. The irony is neither lost on us nor humorous. For every person in this room knows that on the other side of this wait there is joy or despair, relief or shock, release or fear.
The waiting room is decorated to calm, with faux wood floors and somebody-said-this-was-soothing paint colors. There are only a couple of other men here with their wives. People are fidgeting, tired, cranky, sick of waiting while also wishing this day would go away. There are quite a few older folk who have joined the ranks of the “I must yell into my cell phone in public” tribe, leading me to know far too much about their public lives. However, the entertainment value is pretty high.
My heart rate keeps climbing. You try to quell that inner voice of panic with “we’ve been down this road before and it was fine”, but the voice does not agree, reminding me “this is taking a lot longer than before” and “they asked for extra images” and “the doctor sent her over here IMMEDIATELY for scans”. So you wonder, because you know for almost every scary diagnosis people had sat in these chairs thinking it was nothing, it’s not ME, it’s not US.
She is still back there. They won’t let me go back. The news from the back has been delivered to me in more and more panic filled text messages. “They sent me back in for more images”. I know her so well, I can hear her voice crack and her eyes fill.
It is of course not all about me, unlike it is for the fellow in the chair next to me. Tom so far has chewed his wife out twice because “this is taking too long”. He grumbles and sighs, she is pleasant and reassuring, this appears to be a dance they both know well. Finally, in a sweet voice she tells him to just go on back to work if he needs to so bad. Tom snaps back, “what I NEED is a nap!” In my mind I promptly awarded him Mr. Compassion 2014. Maybe his sash should be pink.
They call Mrs. Barfield, loud talker supreme. Her moans just for the effort to stand are on an equal decibel level with her phone conversations. She is alone. I feel sorry for her as she finally rises and begins to shuffle her way to the back. THE BACK. Her cell rings again, evidently Joe is somewhere, parking, and can just wait in the car.
So I pray, fervently, for good news. Not just for my wife but for Mrs. Barfield and for Mrs. Married the Wrong Guy and for women everywhere who this day hear the words they never thought they would hear.
Not too long after she ambled to the back, Mrs. Barfield returns, walking a bit more spry. She announces to the few of us still in the waiting room in our chairs of impending doom, “well glad that’s over!” She shuffles slowly to the door, smiling broadly. I am happy for her. I hope Joe is nearby.
Our news, at last, is delivered in person by the radiologist. Everything is ok. Prayers are offered in thanksgiving and for all those whom the pink ribbons mean so much.