Friday, September 16, 2011

Micro-details for Sept. 22 (Thurs.) Scan

This post will push the snooze button for you due to extremely boring content, but in the remote chance anyone wants these details, here you go:

Arriving at Wake Forest Cancer Center 1 pm to drink milky stuff for the scan. Goof around for a while. Get the scan around 1:40. Scan will cover upper, mid, lower abdomen. (I wish he could get a full body scan, but oh well.) At 2:40, both we and the scan results will be with Dr. Torti (talk about FAST RESULTS! Gotta love that place!).

So at 2:40, if you're REALLY BORED, you can picture us sitting in the little room (it's always the same room) and there's a little knock on the door and in walks Dr. T with his assistant Dr. Diana Stint.

And we've learned to read the face and body language of doctors with "news"--so we'll probably know before he talks.

When it's good news, they walk in fast, raise their eyebrows and smile and say right away, "Good news!"

When it's bad news, they walk in gently, look at you sadly, say nothing for a minute, then quietly ask how you are, then the doctor sits on a stool and rolls it over really really close to Bill's chair and breaks the news in a really soft voice.

The first time we got bad news, it was a super nice doctor in Boone. He came in and closed the door, saying nothing. I knew right then, even tho I had no experience. Then he patted Bill's knee and said, very softly and sadly, "How ya doin', fella?" Oh I REALLY knew then. Then he sat on the ubiquitous rolling doctor stool and softly said, "Well, you've got bladder cancer."

Then--and this would only happen in the Deep South I think--he said, "I don't know what your spiritual position is, but would you like to pray with me right now?"

Can you believe that? If that makes you mad, go back to bed and get up on the other side. I thought that was the coolest thing ever! Bill could've said, "No," so no one got forced into anything. As it happens, Bill, a devout Christian, said, "Yes," and the doctor--I couldn't believe this--TOOK OUR HANDS and made a circle of the three of us holding hands, and said this long beautiful prayer.

Dude. Just hush if you don't like that. If a Dr. ever asks you that, say no if you're not into it. Bill was into it. And I'm just saying, it was one of the most moving moments I ever lived through. And I can't explain it rationally, either.

The other time I'll use as an example was when the bomb dropped at Wake Forest saying Bill had liver cancer. (Dear atheist friends: no prayer in this one. Read without caution.)

We're both sitting in tiny exam room, waiting, guessing the outcome, planning what we will say and do for various scenarios. Little knock on door, door opens. Dr. T comes in with Diana. They both have an expression of somberness and pity, and they say nothing. I know at this point. Dr. T goes, "How ya doing, Bill?" Kind of The Question they always start with, when, ironically, that's the question only THEY can answer.

Then Dr. T sits on the rolling stool, rolls it right up to Bill's knees, so Dr. T's knees are touching Bill's knees. No talking during this. Oh, yes, I was certain now. Then Dr. T mutes the delivery of the news, which I thought was exactly the way to go. He opens a manila folder and looks at a paper. (The fact that all this time is silence, dude, a FROG would've known what's coming.) Then he goes, "Bill, the radiologist is very worried about something he saw on the scan."

I thought, "Now, I bet that radiologist isn't sitting in a corner somewhere chewing his nails, so that must just be the intro they teach you at med school." I actually thought that.

But I loved that gradual presentation technique, and Bill did, too. Lets you kind of gather your heartbeat together before the full disclosure.

Why am I talking about these scenarios?

Because constantly this week, especially during insomnia, I run the scenarios over and over. I imagine every possible thing he could say when he walks in, and what we would do. Franz Kafka had a character who thought that whatever you imagined is the thing that would never happen. So his character avoided a lot of trouble by pre-imagining it. Okay, that was FICTION, yeah. But just in case, I do imagine everything from, "No sign of disease!" to "So how bout them Packers?".

This morning I asked Bill if he does this same thing: imagining all the scenarios when the Dr. walks in.

He looks at me over his glasses and after a long pause, he says, "No. I haven't been doing that. But now I will be, thank you very much."

Oh, snap! I quick told him about the Kafka thing. He listened then said, "Know what? How about YOU sit around imagining all the worst case scenarios, and I'll just continue with the sports page, here."

That's my cowboy.

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