The day my lively, vivacious, 91-going-on-sixty-year-old mama leaves is never a perky day, so I was predisposed to grumpiness during Hour 2 at the oncologist's clinic today--even though the news was excellent. No malignancy! (To top off that good news later in the day, I got a call from last week's two skin biopsies--both benign.)
So I should be reporting just that, period, with gratitude (which I do feel big time!) but I am going to add some grump along with gratitude. Should an appointment made six months in advance start two hours late?
I spent Hour 1 in the waiting room with a roomful of gloomy women and bored-looking husbands, no one talking or holding hands. A silent TV played clips from last night's Oscars, but no one was watching. It was eerie, but that's what cancer doctors' waiting rooms always must feel like, a bunch of random patients like ourselves considering our mortality.
Hour 2 was spent in the cold exam room wearing a plastic gown. By the time I got the good news, I was so disgruntled that I left knowing that would be my last time in the office of the premier breast doctor in the land--according to the posters and articles plastered all over the room and hallways.
I wondered what I had been doing a year ago when one single cell divided into two or three--walking with Elena? talking with a friend? making dinner? We're all busy minding our lives when suddenly something happens out of the blue that can change everything.
I'm one of the lucky ones. The gift shop sells mostly snacks and cancer hair scarves. Had my story gone another way, I could have been buying a new scarf instead of grumbling over a late doctor!
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