I had my six month meeting with the oncologist a couple of days ago. I spent the two weeks preceding the visit elevating my blood pressure and anxiety while pretending that it was just another visit. I made my wife miserable and I apologize. For me I think it’s a kind of anticipatory stress syndrome. I don’t want to fall apart in the examining room if the news is bad. To add a little extra frisson…the oncologist who walked me through four years of these anxious visits…has retired. i wish him well…good seas and a following wind. For anyone in this medical specialty it cannot be easy. So I was meeting my new oncologist for the first time. She was running two hours late and I was tired and so was Louise. When she finally arrived all I could think was that she seemed so young. Honestly, at my age most people are starting to look pretty young. It doesn’t matter of course and I realize that it’s a stupid prejudice…but then the whole business of cancer is a perplexing, frightening, deeply personal experience. She just became part of it for me. The meeting turned out to be O.K.
“Come back in a year” she finally said. That’s shorthand for …we’re not watching you every six months anymore. On the one hand…that’s good news…on the other there’s this reluctance to let go of those six month visits. So I got dressed, thanked her and we left… It takes a couple of days to come down from those nerves and yesterday I rode thirty hard kilometres on my bike to blow it all out of my head…and to be sure I was tired enough to sleep.
Sitting in the waiting room at the Cancer Centre for a couple of hours is a daunting experience. It’s a modern, recently renovated and decorated space filled with light from high, wide windows and open interiors. The place is furnished with comfortable chairs and short couches because they know that people arrive here to wait as couples…husband wife, daughter parent, son parent…those configurations. Or just friends…that’s good too. Because it’s not a place you want to spend time alone. As you look around you see people receding into themselves…withdrawing to wherever strength resides. They smile and nod and talk but their minds like mine are already standing outside the examining room door. It’s not so much a lesson in humility, although it may be that…as a lesson learned every time about humanity. And as much as I wish Louise didn’t have to be there…I’m glad that she was.
Chagal4's Blog 
September 24, 2015 at 3:02 pm |
YEAH! many of us happy that you have a year off from Docs !!!