Waiting for answers.

The next week was a blur of writhing pain, blistery fevers and restless sleep. We tried not to let our thoughts get the best of us. We tried not to think about the CAT scan. Or how sick I had become. Or cancer. We tried not to think at all. But every morning I was awoken by nagging thoughts and unanswered questions. “Was I going to die? What did the road ahead look like for me? Was there a dead end sign fast approaching?”.

That evening I remember lying on the couch in the living room and being startled at hearing the front door creak open. I listened hearing footsteps come up the stairs. Moments later I was greeted with a large bouquet of flowers and a warm smile. It was my sister. My younger sister.  My sister that I hadn’t seen in months.  I was happy to see her. It had been too long. Home wasn’t the same without her.

For a moment I forgot my pain. For a moment I was just happy to see my sister.

A few minutes passed. I remember seeing the concern behind her eyes.  My sister who never showed emotion. My sister who never showed fear. I was startled to see her pretty brown eyes well up with large glassy tears. “I love you sister,” she told me. I swallowed hard and choked back my tears. They came anyway.

 I knew I must look pretty sick. For my sister to elicit such emotion, I knew what she saw that night scared her. It scared me too.

The next morning we got a call from Dr. Dickinson’s office. It was an update on my recent labs. My anemia was worsening. My ESR (rate of inflammation) was also rising, now reaching 100, ten times the normal rate of inflammation. Things weren’t quieting down. In fact, they seemed to do the exact opposite.

A week passed and we returned to Dr. Dickinson’s office. Today was the day I would get my answer. Truth be told, I didn’t want my answer. I desperately wanted to just wake up from this bad dream that I’d been having. We were brought back to the exam room and told to wait. I braced myself as best I could, but I could feel my body trembling. The air in the exam room seemed cold. I could feel my heart racing. I had to calm down. I glanced over at my parents, sitting in chairs, both clenching their hands. We didn’t say a word. I heard myself take a deep breath in and sigh.

Moments later Dr. Dickinson entered. With him he carried a transparent film. He greeted us with a smile. We wondered about the film he carried. He told us he hadn’t yet seen the film, so “we would review it together”. That sounded like a horrible idea to me. I wanted him to just blurt out my results and be done with it already.  

We watched as he turned toward the white screen and flipped the ‘on’ switch. Two seconds later the white screened flickered with a bluish white light. We watched as he placed the film on the screen. We followed him across the room, standing closely behind him. Hanging on his every word. His every movement. His every breath. Waiting for any signal that would give us our answer. I leaned against the exam table for strength, but my knees were shaking. I swallowed hard. We watched him as he studied the film. We looked too. He took several minutes to look over the film. To us it felt like hours.

Then I saw it. A collection of white dots around my lungs. “This was it.” I couldn’t wait any longer. I heard myself blurt out, “So what do you think?”.

He looked our way and to our surprise told us he didn’t think it was cancer. He did see some lymph nodes in my chest that were swollen. But at this point, he didn’t feel I had lymphoma.

He recommended referral to a rheumatologist.

We collapsed in the car on the way home. Waves of relief flooded our exhausted hearts. We didn’t have our answer. We were so grateful that day that Dr. Dickinson didn’t have our answer.