A year ago today, I said farewell to my mom as she was wheeled back for an exploratory surgery that was supposed to be the first step to cancer recovery. The doctor said that it should take 8-9 hours and to expect a long stay in the waiting area.
I waddled my 6 month pregnant self to a comfortable chair in said waiting room and set my bag on the ground, trying to ignore the discomfort I was feeling in my left flank area. Pregnancy brought out some serious swelling in my kidneys, and discomfort wasn’t unusual at the time, so I tried distracting myself with Scott Hamilton’s autobiography, Landing It.
I fidgeted in my seat, trying to find a way to be comfortable, but with an achy back, flank pain, and a very active baby in my belly, I just couldn’t do it. Reading was apparently out of the question, so I stood up to pace the floor a bit.
Shortly after I started pacing, a woman in jeans and a tshirt came in and sat down at the chair directly across from mine. She, too, had a book in hand, and she smiled at me as she opened it.
Over the next few hours, this woman and I chatted about why we were there, my pregnancy, her job, her daughter. Her husband was in for a gall bladder removal, and I hesitated to tell her that my mom was in for gall bladder cancer. I could see worry flood her face when the words came out of my mouth, but I quickly added “it’s rare,” and relief took worry’s place.
Four hours after my mother’s surgery began, my name was called, and the surgeon appeared. Four hours? That didn’t seem right to me. Maybe it had gone better than planned, I reasoned.
As he led me into a confidential patient/doctor conversation room, the doctor removed his surgical mask and hair covering. He directed me to some chairs, and as I sat he closed the door. That’s when I knew it wasn’t good news.
What happened next is a haze in my mind – words like “inoperable tumor,” “widely spread cancer cells,” and “more aggressive than we’d hoped” were being used and I just stared at him, unfazed. “6 months to live” came next followed by “I’m so sorry. Is there anything else I can do?”
When he stopped talking, I realized he was expecting an answer of some sort. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. Finally, in a breathless voice, “are you sure?” was all I could muster. He nodded, and the tears came.
I thought he’d leave then, like the angel of death – swiftly coming to deliver the news and running immediately thereafter – but he didn’t. This surgeon, he knelt down in front of me, a weeping pregnant woman in an overstuffed armchair, and he held my hands in his. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “I wish I were a magician instead of a doctor.” And then he hugged me. I sobbed and sobbed.
Composing myself was hard. But there were phone calls to make, relatives and friends eager to hear that mom would be okay. I would have to break the news to every single one of them, that miracles sometimes don’t pull through, that doctors can’t fix everything. I walked out of that little room, the surgeon’s arm around me, and through bloodshot eyes, saw the woman I had been talking to in the waiting room.
She knew. I didn’t have to say a word. She ran to me and hugged me, and cried. She didn’t know my mom, she didn’t really know me, but this wonderful woman held me and cried with me, because she saw my heart breaking. Through the next half hour, she sat with me and held my hand as I made heart wrenching phone call after heart wrenching phone call. Everyone’s reaction was the same – a quick “I’m so sorry,” and hanging up as I could hear them start to cry.
That day was one of the worst I’ve ever been through. Not only did I have to hear this news from the doctor, but as the first person my mom saw when she woke up… I had to tell her the news. She begged, through groggy tears, to know if she was going to die. “They’re not hopeful, but no one can say for sure,” was all I could think to say. My mom looked so tiny and helpless in that hospital bed at that moment, the first of many in which I wanted to run away and pretend this was all a bad dream.
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My life is different now. I don’t see that as a good day, but it could have been worse. The doctor could have been rude. I could have been all alone. But thanks to the kindness of strangers, a terrible day was bearable.
To the surgeon, thank you. Thank you for having a heart, for the compassion in your eyes. Thank you for letting me weep into your scrubs, and for allowing me your precious time when I had questions in the coming months. Thank you for treating my mother with respect and dignity and for not giving up on her when other doctors would have.
To the woman in the waiting room – my “waiting room angel”: I don’t remember your name. I remember you telling me you worked at a school as a special education aid. I remember that your husband pulled through his surgery just fine and is probably still a police officer. I remember you saying your daughter was in the early years of high school. But most of all, I remember your kindness. I remember how nice it was to have someone crying with me – so I didn’t feel out of place and alone. I remember that without your genuine niceness, I don’t know that I would have made it through those hours in that waiting room. Thank you, I will never forget you.
The kindness of strangers is a powerful thing.
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