On Friday I had an hour consultation with an oncologist. I’ve never met an oncologist before. Maybe I have, long ago in a hospital far away when I was too young to really understand. I knew my father was sick… I even vaguely knew he was dying. I was 14 – not so very young, but it seems that way now. I didn’t know what an oncologist was. I knew that cancer = death.
Hospitals scare me; I’m sure they scare everyone, but when I get in there and see those huge machines, I think very science fiction-esque thoughts. You might die here. Whatever is wrong with you, this place will make you worse. You will be poked, prodded, tubes inserted, scans performed, drips connected to your veins, poisons injected. People who are ok do not get hooked up to these machines – or pushed inside them, or placed beneath them, or whatever. I am normally a pretty rational person; but when I see a machine, any machine, looming over me in a dimly lit room I feel something very close to panic. Adrenaline - fight or flight - a lump seals my throat, eyes burn, memories flood in. It’s all I can do to reassure myself that I’m there for something quite routine, nothing to get worked up about.
Conditioning, I think… I already know what happens in these places, I’ve already watched someone I loved waste away under these lights, body pumped full of toxic cancer-fighting chemicals, chest burned dark from radiation treatments, tortured and unable to speak, unable to describe his pain. Hospitals smell bad (like death I suppose). Everything makes that humming sound. Everything is labeled. Bottles and bins have warning labels, radioactive symbols, bright neon colors. On the sides of machines, inspection labels with dates on them, official-looking seals of approval that this apparatus is good to go on doing its thing with another few thousand patients. Some of them look like they’re from the next millennium; some look like they’ve been there since the 70s. I find myself wondering what a single machine must cost. Can’t have to budget for that more than once every 10 years, I’m sure. What if they are like the space shuttle, built decades ago and aging away quietly in their sterile rooms? No labels say “trust me” as you are rolled over to the machine, a lever is rotated or a button is pressed, a huge arm lowers itself or a tower advances towards you, a black screen staring at you or glass plates extending towards your breasts, chest, torso, waiting to capture, squeeze, press, examine, scan.
None of this happened to me on Friday. I walked past the big machine and had a simple consultation and exam, with plenty of waiting in between. The higher the level of specialization, the longer you wait. Family doc: 5-10 minutes. OB/GYN: 15-20 minutes. Oncologist: 20 minutes in the waiting room, 30 minutes in the examining room, another 15-30 minutes in between (“put this gown on, I’ll be right back”: famous last words. I spent a solid half hour sitting on a table wrapped in a damn piece of paper, thinking how badly I needed to pee and knowing that the second I ducked out to look for a restroom, she might return and leave again before I could get back, and I’d be wandering the halls in jeans and a square pink sheet).
We talked about my family history, lots of red flags there. I’m the only case she has ever seen, in fact, with this kind of cancer history on both sides of the family. I asked lots of questions about everything I could think of, all the what-if and what-now and what-do-you-think questions that I already knew the answer to but had to ask so I could say I did. She palpated my breasts; agreed with the radiologist who in November had declared them a “garden full of cysts.” She found at least two more lumps that nobody else had noticed. They are peripheral, close to my sternum. Nowhere the mammo unit could even see, not where they scanned with the ultrasound. Great. She uses the word ‘worrisome’… I flood her with more what-now and what-if questions. I need to come back for an MRI. Another very big machine. I don’t schedule this myself; they will call me with the appointment. So I will wait. Oh, for a glimmer of control over this process… anything to make me feel like I am involved, deciding things, weighing options.
They took blood, too. I almost forgot, it was so rushed. The FedEx truck was coming soon and they wanted to ship my blood out that night to Salt Lake City (“so it doesn’t sit around until Monday and get old”). The destination is Myriad Genetics Lab. A $3000 test, complete profiles of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes to screen for any mutations. Results in 3 weeks. We schedule a follow-up appointment for 3 weeks from the day; they won’t tell me the result on the phone. I will have to come into the office to hear it in person. I could test negative. I could get on with my life as an average woman with average risk. Average lumpy breasts. Average likelihood of living in happiness and peace, of having children, of growing old. Or…
I am not afraid of needles, but I always look away because I know I will over-anticipate the prick. As the blood flows out of my vein into the tube, I look back and watch. Two full vials and another small one, just in case. I watch the vial fill and fight back tears. Thinking about where that blood is headed. What it will tell us. What it means. My future in a little plastic tube.
