Waiting

How much of human life is lost in waiting. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I guess we were being unduly optimistic when we thought I would get a call from the doctor’s office when the results of my CT Scan were available. The scan had been performed because of my concern that the tumor was growing again. The doctor when reviewing my concerns also considered the possibility of a pulmonary blood clot. Of course we would be called. We anxiously waited the outcome for two days and when we had heard nothing by this morning we knew we had to do something about it ourselves. The weekend was coming up and we had no more time to waste. Bob called the nurse’s hotline. She found the radiologist’s report sitting in my folder. The nurse read some of the results to Bob over the phone… no pulmonary blood clot is the good news, but the tumor has grown slightly. The nurse said the doctor would probably discuss it with me at the next scheduled appointment. That appointment was scheduled before I began to experience troubling symptoms, and wouldn’t be until the 22nd of December. My chemo had been put on hold until we knew what was happening with the tumor. With advanced lung cancer no one can afford to wait when the tumor starts growing again. When pressed, we managed to get an appointment scheduled with my oncologist for this coming Monday. But the nurse warned me that I needed to be prepared to wait because that appointment time is now double booked. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote takes on added meaning for me when every day counts.

... P. L. Morningstar