It was more than an ordinary day - that one day. It was not like all the other ordinary days months earlier. Our lives are usually filled with those kind of days. Until that one day. And then followed by many more of the same days.
It was one ordinary April day when my wife, as part of her yearly physical, went to have her annual mammogram. She dreaded it every time but since she has it every year, it was ordinarily routine, even though it was not something she looked forward to. It was customarily ordinary for her to come home and relate her ordeal with the machine. How unfeeling the technician was, even as my wife winces as those two inanimate, mechanical plates pressed down on her breasts, flattening them to spread the tissue for a better definition of the mammography. It was still an ordinary day, a few days later, when the nurse called and told her they needed to do another mammogram (they had done it once before). And also, a sonogram of her right breast on that same visit. She went and had it all done. Maybe that was a little bit out of the ordinary. It sure was, but not alarmingly so.
It was not an ordinary day when days later the nurse called again to say the doctor wanted a biopsy done. The radiologist was concerned about one little spot that both the mammogram and sonogram showed.
The procedure was definitely out of the ordinary. There was pain. There was worry. There was fear. That was no ordinary day.
It was not an ordinary day when days later the nurse called again to say the doctor wanted a biopsy done. The radiologist was concerned about one little spot that both the mammogram and sonogram showed.
The procedure was definitely out of the ordinary. There was pain. There was worry. There was fear. That was no ordinary day.
But ordinary days followed since. That's much of what most people experience in life in general, isn't it? A lot of ordinary days, a few out-of-the-ordinary ones, but extraordinary days were fewer still (usually good or sensational). Then the call that came one day was dreadfully not ordinary. They scheduled her to see a surgeon. The drive to the doctor's office was somber and filled with questions after questions. We just said them, uttering them as if there was a listener or listeners in our midst, riding with us in the car, to blurt out the answers. No answers came.
The answer was at the doctor's office. He didn't waste any words. It was direct, immediate and clear. Doctors these days are probably trained to get to the point right away and allow for thirty seconds to a minute for the patient to absorb the news. I heard the words because I was there sitting next to my wife. Those seconds felt, to me, like five minutes as I cram all the thoughts that came rushing through. To my wife, it was a lightning bolt and the thunderclap that followed may have deafened her ears or froze the processing unit in her brain after the words, "the biopsy was positive, there is a malignant tissue the size of a pea in your right breast. It is stage 1 cancer..." She could not recall the rest. It dashed all hopes that perhaps, as we so hopefully wished, it was just calcified tissue that needed to be taken out.
The surgery must be done as soon as possible. It will be limited to excising that tissue and three lymph nodes will be removed as well. It was going to be a lumpectomy, not the full blown mastectomy. Not that it mattered much. Surgery is surgery. Cancer is cancer. It was scheduled for the following week.
The night before the surgery she was instructed to shower, use a particular soap, and follow a specific procedure, particularly on the area where the surgery was going to be done.
We needed to be at the hospital at 6:00 a.m. the following morning. We set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. The alarm radio never got a chance to do its assigned task because we were up before it could. We got to the hospital before there was any valet to park the car. It costs the same to use the valet service as to self-park and the latter would have required me to negotiate a dizzying spiral to get to the multi-level parking system. I was dizzy already from the mental maelstrom of emotions, worry and the utter helplessness derived from uncertainty, that driving up the level after level for a parking space was going to be an unforgiving chore. As instructed we left the car in front of the lobby and took the keys with us. Someone later went up to pick them up in exchange for a claim check. I am recounting all of these because even though this was nerve racking for us both, indeed a serious episode in her life, I realized that that day for everyone else was just another ordinary day. To the registrar at the 8th floor receiving area, taking the information from us, checking everything was all set, the day was ordinary for her. When we were finally called in to the prep area, the place was busy but the nurses were going about their chores in measured steps but definitely not quickened in a manner I expected a hospital to be. We were tense but everything else around us were ordinarily routine, as if we were actors misplaced at a different stage play! There is a point to all of these later.
The first thing I noticed was the repetition of the same basic questions asked over and over every time a new personnel came along. "When is your birthday, what are we going to do today, which breast is it ...? I soon figured out that at the hospital these days, no one can be too careful. These questions are repeated as a precaution against medical ID mistakes. Soon it became an ordinary routine. The questions were asked by the first attending nurse who took her vital signs, then when the ID bracelets were put on her wrist, then she was brought to another prep area for a critical procedure - insertion of a very thin wire that went through skin and tissue right into the exact location of the area that the doctor will excise. Then back to the first room where later a technician came to inject the radioactive dye to the three lymph nodes that will be removed. The same questions even when the brightly colored bracelet had all the information in it. To those folks asking the questions, it was ordinarily routine but crucial in insuring that it is exactly the right person who is getting the treatment. And the guess work is avoided because the surgeon was not going to look anywhere but where the thin wire pointed to exactly and what the dye "illuminated".
It was out of the ordinary though when we were told her surgery was going to be delayed because the operating room wasn't ready caused by delay in the prior procedure (by another doctor). Apparently, operating rooms are used multiple times in a day, though not necessarily for the same procedures. Well, that was ordinarily routine.
The waiting area was barely aglow with subdued lighting, relatives waiting and conducting muffled conversations or their heads were down looking at the bright screens of the ubiquitous smart phones. I waited idly because I couldn't focus on a magazine article or anything else. Then my phone rang. It was the surgeon. "The surgery went well, she will be fine and she's now in the recovery area. It could be for another hour or a little bit longer before she's ready to leave. She is going to be fine". It was now one in the afternoon. I went down to get a sandwich. Lunch that was impossible to have before the doctor's call couldn't have been more delicious - at the hospital cafeteria.
The recovery area was again filled by nurses, different ones from the prep area, who went about their duties in what had become now ordinary images from my point of view. The only one that was out of their ordinary routine was saying their goodbyes to one nurse who was on her last day there, she was moving somewhere and there were congratulations and well wishes and such. The scene was no more different from offices anywhere. Ordinary things happening and perhaps one extraordinary one (the joyous goodbyes to the departing nurse).
That was what struck me. It dawned on me that ordinary things do and should occur at places like the hospital. We want it to be ordinary, as routine as possible, in fact, because that means that everything is just going as it should be. We don't want the nurses, doctors and staff to have out-of-the ordinary episodes while at work because that means that there could be problems or issues not planned or anticipated.
It was 3:00 in the afternoon by the time we left the floor and in a few minutes after that the valet attendant brought the car down. He had been doing that all day and it appeared that he was just having an ordinary day.
The first night was definitely out of the ordinary as the pain medication started to wear off. She didn't want to lie on the bed to sleep. She preferred the recliner in the family area; she didn't mind that I sleep on the regular bed as soon as it was time. That evening, I picked the other recliner next to her and we spent the first night, for the first time, sleeping on the recliner until morning. That was out of the ordinary, although I had fallen asleep there many times in the past while watching TV on ordinary afternoons.
Days passed since after the surgery. Follow up visits to the doctor came and went. Both oncologist and surgeon confirmed that chemotherapy was not necessary but a month-long daily radiation therapy was needed to insure that straggler cancer cells are totally eradicated from around the surgical area. The daily radiation sessions also became ordinarily routine.
It was her last day of radiation last Wednesday. The previous day, Tuesday, she brought specialty pastries and candies for all the staff at the radiation center and personal thank you notes to some of them. When all is said and done, there is not enough said of the care givers - nurses and technicians - who attend to cancer patients. These were the nicest people one could encounter at times like these. These are whom one should wish for or for a loved one stricken by an illness like this. These are well trained professionals that I know are likely selected for their aptitude and excellent bedside manners. They made ordinary days of "out-of-the ordinary".
Customary to all patients who finish their therapy, they get to ring a bell right by the nurses' station. Part of a tradition that I understand is now widely practiced in radiation clinics. My wife rang it vigorously.
The other facet of the experiences was meeting the other cancer patients that were also undergoing radiation therapy. After a while the faces became familiar and soon we were talking with them and their family members. That was the amazing part. Everyone, as if on cue, was supportive of each other, as if they had known each other a long time, emphasizing the positive, harboring no bitterness but hopeful of the prospect that all of these were going to pass.
I now have a better appreciation for ordinary days. And thank goodness for yearly mammograms and annual physical check ups. And for ordinary prayer.
The night before the surgery she was instructed to shower, use a particular soap, and follow a specific procedure, particularly on the area where the surgery was going to be done.
We needed to be at the hospital at 6:00 a.m. the following morning. We set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. The alarm radio never got a chance to do its assigned task because we were up before it could. We got to the hospital before there was any valet to park the car. It costs the same to use the valet service as to self-park and the latter would have required me to negotiate a dizzying spiral to get to the multi-level parking system. I was dizzy already from the mental maelstrom of emotions, worry and the utter helplessness derived from uncertainty, that driving up the level after level for a parking space was going to be an unforgiving chore. As instructed we left the car in front of the lobby and took the keys with us. Someone later went up to pick them up in exchange for a claim check. I am recounting all of these because even though this was nerve racking for us both, indeed a serious episode in her life, I realized that that day for everyone else was just another ordinary day. To the registrar at the 8th floor receiving area, taking the information from us, checking everything was all set, the day was ordinary for her. When we were finally called in to the prep area, the place was busy but the nurses were going about their chores in measured steps but definitely not quickened in a manner I expected a hospital to be. We were tense but everything else around us were ordinarily routine, as if we were actors misplaced at a different stage play! There is a point to all of these later.
The first thing I noticed was the repetition of the same basic questions asked over and over every time a new personnel came along. "When is your birthday, what are we going to do today, which breast is it ...? I soon figured out that at the hospital these days, no one can be too careful. These questions are repeated as a precaution against medical ID mistakes. Soon it became an ordinary routine. The questions were asked by the first attending nurse who took her vital signs, then when the ID bracelets were put on her wrist, then she was brought to another prep area for a critical procedure - insertion of a very thin wire that went through skin and tissue right into the exact location of the area that the doctor will excise. Then back to the first room where later a technician came to inject the radioactive dye to the three lymph nodes that will be removed. The same questions even when the brightly colored bracelet had all the information in it. To those folks asking the questions, it was ordinarily routine but crucial in insuring that it is exactly the right person who is getting the treatment. And the guess work is avoided because the surgeon was not going to look anywhere but where the thin wire pointed to exactly and what the dye "illuminated".
It was out of the ordinary though when we were told her surgery was going to be delayed because the operating room wasn't ready caused by delay in the prior procedure (by another doctor). Apparently, operating rooms are used multiple times in a day, though not necessarily for the same procedures. Well, that was ordinarily routine.
The waiting area was barely aglow with subdued lighting, relatives waiting and conducting muffled conversations or their heads were down looking at the bright screens of the ubiquitous smart phones. I waited idly because I couldn't focus on a magazine article or anything else. Then my phone rang. It was the surgeon. "The surgery went well, she will be fine and she's now in the recovery area. It could be for another hour or a little bit longer before she's ready to leave. She is going to be fine". It was now one in the afternoon. I went down to get a sandwich. Lunch that was impossible to have before the doctor's call couldn't have been more delicious - at the hospital cafeteria.
The recovery area was again filled by nurses, different ones from the prep area, who went about their duties in what had become now ordinary images from my point of view. The only one that was out of their ordinary routine was saying their goodbyes to one nurse who was on her last day there, she was moving somewhere and there were congratulations and well wishes and such. The scene was no more different from offices anywhere. Ordinary things happening and perhaps one extraordinary one (the joyous goodbyes to the departing nurse).
That was what struck me. It dawned on me that ordinary things do and should occur at places like the hospital. We want it to be ordinary, as routine as possible, in fact, because that means that everything is just going as it should be. We don't want the nurses, doctors and staff to have out-of-the ordinary episodes while at work because that means that there could be problems or issues not planned or anticipated.
It was 3:00 in the afternoon by the time we left the floor and in a few minutes after that the valet attendant brought the car down. He had been doing that all day and it appeared that he was just having an ordinary day.
The first night was definitely out of the ordinary as the pain medication started to wear off. She didn't want to lie on the bed to sleep. She preferred the recliner in the family area; she didn't mind that I sleep on the regular bed as soon as it was time. That evening, I picked the other recliner next to her and we spent the first night, for the first time, sleeping on the recliner until morning. That was out of the ordinary, although I had fallen asleep there many times in the past while watching TV on ordinary afternoons.
Days passed since after the surgery. Follow up visits to the doctor came and went. Both oncologist and surgeon confirmed that chemotherapy was not necessary but a month-long daily radiation therapy was needed to insure that straggler cancer cells are totally eradicated from around the surgical area. The daily radiation sessions also became ordinarily routine.
It was her last day of radiation last Wednesday. The previous day, Tuesday, she brought specialty pastries and candies for all the staff at the radiation center and personal thank you notes to some of them. When all is said and done, there is not enough said of the care givers - nurses and technicians - who attend to cancer patients. These were the nicest people one could encounter at times like these. These are whom one should wish for or for a loved one stricken by an illness like this. These are well trained professionals that I know are likely selected for their aptitude and excellent bedside manners. They made ordinary days of "out-of-the ordinary".
Customary to all patients who finish their therapy, they get to ring a bell right by the nurses' station. Part of a tradition that I understand is now widely practiced in radiation clinics. My wife rang it vigorously.
The other facet of the experiences was meeting the other cancer patients that were also undergoing radiation therapy. After a while the faces became familiar and soon we were talking with them and their family members. That was the amazing part. Everyone, as if on cue, was supportive of each other, as if they had known each other a long time, emphasizing the positive, harboring no bitterness but hopeful of the prospect that all of these were going to pass.
I now have a better appreciation for ordinary days. And thank goodness for yearly mammograms and annual physical check ups. And for ordinary prayer.
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| This is the "Graduation" Bell |
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