The Waiting Room
I finished off the paper and sat back waiting for Wes. I looked around the room, it was fuller than usual. A husband was sitting in a waiting room chair and his wife was in a wheelchair in front of him and their daughter and son-in-law sitting beside him.
Across the way there was a younger couple looking quite nervous as they quietly filled out their paper. Soon another woman walked quickly into the clinic carrying an overfull shopping bag with a wrapped bouquet of flowers. She fidgeted at the desk until the receptionist was off the phone. After the receptionist had greeted her the woman leaned across whispering something and the receptionist smiled and whispered back. The woman thanked her and turned to walk out when the bouquet of flowers fell out of the bag onto the floor. She bent down, swept them up and put them into her bag again, took one step and out they fell another time. She picked them up and forcefully jammed them down into her bag and had barely taken another step when the irritating bouquet fell out once again. She muttered under her breath and bent down one last time, scooped them up and rushed out into the hallway. I felt bad for her, this was not one of those funny moments when someone keeps dropping something, but rather one of those sad pathetic moments when you feel like you need to run over and give someone a hug.
The family who's mother was in a wheelchair had begun filling out their form. The father, daughter & son-in-law discussed what level of anxiety and depression their mother was feeling. They never consulted her, they talked around her, as if she wasn’t there and I could feel her frustration growing as she continually asked them what they were talking about. They got into a discussion about whether anxiety and depression was the same thing and it sounded like a fairly futile discussion. The mother tried to tell them that her experience of anxiety was about a 5, but they decided that she was an 8. She got even more frustrated and when her husband stood up to ask the receptionist what the difference was between anxiety and depression she turned to me, although she wasn’t talking directly to me and said, “Everything he does drives me nuts!”
Her husband had received direction from the receptionist and sat back down with the clipboard again. And like they had done earlier the family began filling out the form and ignoring the woman sitting in the wheelchair. She listened for awhile and then tried to enter into the conversation.
“You’re all talking in riddles” she said grumpily to her family who quickly explained that they were still discussing which number she should have on anxiety. She rolled her eyes and reminded them that she had told them that she felt it was only a five out of ten since she was on anti-anxiety medication. They finally agreed to that number and then finished filling out the form without her and then when her husband walked over to hand in her form to the receptionist she once again turned to the side and muttered under her breath, “You’re all driving me crazy!”
The woman with the bouquet of flowers came back into the waiting room, minus the flowers and instead she had her elderly father in tow. They sat down and she began quickly filling out his form, she seemed jittery and in a hurry. He had little to no response to anything she said. She filled out the form quickly and brought it to the front desk, but he never even blinked an eye; he simply sat with the hood from his jacket on his head and stared straight ahead. You could see the shadows of helplessness in his eyes.
It was a heavy feeling in that room, stifling really and then a woman entered with a small girl of about 3 or 4 years of age who was holding a purple sucker. The woman’s smile was brilliant as she looked around the room as she headed straight for the receptionist. The receptionist greeted her like a long lost friend.
“This is Sabrina” the older woman told the little girl, as she pointed at the receptionist “Grandma sees Sabrina every week when she comes here!”
Sabrina greeted the little girl who stood on tiptoes to peek over the desk and the three of them chattered happily for the next five minutes.
I looked around the room and realized that though this little scene had put a smile on my face it did not change the atmosphere for anyone else. The woman in the wheelchair seemed irritated at the conversation that was happening at the desk just behind her and the young couple were still in their own world never having even looked up at the commotion and the old man still sat with his hood and no expression whatsoever. The world around them no longer seemed to have any effect on them, not for this moment in time anyway.
I sighed because I could understand their pain and fear, I could understand that feeling that the world could gladly go on without me because I could only focus on one thing at a time. You live in that shadow of fear and death and it's a hard place to live and even though you tell yourself you can't stay there in the shadows it's hard to move out of them.
There was nothing funny about any of the situations in the waiting room; each one was heartrending in its own way. You didn’t have to know their stories detail for detail to know that these people were in pain, emotional, physical and spiritual pain. After all, they are sitting in the waiting room of the brain tumour clinic so it’s pretty obvious that they are in a serious battle for their lives.
I prayed that we would be called in soon.
The wife of the younger couple was called in by the nurse and with a deep breath the woman stood and slowly began walking toward the nurse, her husband quickly on her heels. It looked as though every step was a struggle. I couldn’t blame them because I remember that feeling. My heart ached for them as I watched them make their way to the nurse. God give them peace.
I sighed again. The heaviness in the room was still stifling. Then the nurse called Wes’ name and we stood and I gave her a smile as we made our way toward her. She smiled back and began chattering as we walked down the hallway.
“Wes, I’m going to weigh you first and then I’m going to put you in a room.”
It was a silly comment, because the way she said it, the tone of her voice, made it sound like she wanted to put him away. Her comment hit us all three at the same time and we stopped in the hallway beside the scale and began to laugh. We couldn’t stop, it had sounded so stupid. She began apologizing. “That’s not what I meant!” she said in between giggles. She then turned to me and said, “Am I as red as I feel?” And I assured her that she was. We couldn’t stop laughing, she fumbled with the scale and caught her breath and then continued laughing. She pointed at the room right in front of the scale and said that we could have a seat in there. She followed us in and continued to chuckle as she told us that it would not be long for someone to come and see us. We could hear her laughing as she made her way back down the hall. Phew! That felt good. The shadows were receding.
A few minutes later the same nurse was back at the scale. This time she was with the woman in the wheelchair and her family. Her attitude had completely reversed. She was professional, no mistakes, she was calm and gentle and treated the woman in the wheelchair like a queen. I watched her lovingly help the woman stand and step on the scale, speaking softly to her as she helped her back down. She carefully rolled the chair into the room next to us. The giggles were gone and in its place was an attitude of compassion. Funny, but even without the laughter you could feel the shadows dissipating even more.
Isn’t God amazing? Though the waiting room was filled with angst and apprehension and sorrow and even anger, He knew that my heart needed something to pull the shadows that had filled that waiting room away. I didn't even have to ask, He already knew what it was that my soul needed. It’s a hard enough place to visit on a regular basis, so you always hope that there will be some little spark of life that breaks up the fears and darkness that can fill that place. And He offered that to us through one little misspoken sentence. And I know it wasn’t just for me because I could see it in the nurse’s face, she needed that laugh. The joke wasn’t that funny, but she laughed until there were tears in her eyes. And I have a feeling that that little story will have perhaps made it's way into the coffee room where there will have been more giggles.
God never allows these things to happen by accident, He allows them to happen because He cares. Even in our dark times, He wants us to know that He's there. He's there, by comforting us, yes, by loving us, yes...but, He even offers His Presence through the simplest goofiest moments of laughter, especially when we feel as though we are surrounded by a sea of shadows...He's there!
And oh yeah, the results showed that everything is still looking good. No new growth. Another thing to smile about.
Thank you God!
“Your love is a treasure, and everyone finds shelter in the shadow of your wings.” Psalm 36:7
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