Three Weeks Later

July 12, 2007

I look down at my left hand, where my wedding ring keeps Terry’s larger wedding band on my finger. I wiggle the heavy gold circle around, a nervous tick that reveals the effort I’m spending to look calm. To be calm. What will the neurosurgeon find when he carefully excavates the tumor hiding inside Terry’s skull? “Encapsulated” is the term Dr. Shapiro used when he described this procedure to us more than a week ago, meaning he believes it to be non-malignant. That’s our hope now. No cancer. No treatment. A one and done. No more worries.

I glance up to scan the waiting room filled with our friends and family, except Terry’s dad who is recovering from his own health issues at home in Oklahoma. Terry’s mom is across from me, reading or at least trying to. The long-time English teacher turns to books for comfort as well as enlightenment. Joan is always the personification of calm and control, although even this stalwart has been challenged since Terry’s first seizure. The alarm clock that, three weeks ago, told us all to wake up because something bad was happening in his brain.

Conversation among those of us waiting has been light, an attempt to stay positive in the face of this potential threat. We’ve brought snacks, puzzles, magazines, and upbeat perspectives to counter the gravity of brain surgery. But it’s hard to avoid imagining the what-ifs. What if it’s cancer? What if it’s life-changing? What if it’s worse?

I thought I was holding it together pretty well this morning: arriving on time for registration, holding the necessary fully completed forms, responsibly handing over my husband (no food or liquids since midnight, as instructed). There, that’s done. My job is successfully completed. Now it’s up to the medical professionals; nothing I can do but wait for my next instructions. So, like the good eldest child who always follows the rules, I’ve kept busy, snacking, reading, chatting.

All these hours later, I can’t see it from this windowless room but I know day is slipping into night. The patient liaison says we should hear something soon. But I wonder if I’d prefer to simply stay in this limbo moment when there is no danger. When my sons are enjoying themselves with friends elsewhere, safe and sound. When I can marvel at how Terry has accepted this challenge with more grace than I knew he possessed, surprising me once more after two decades together. When my biggest frustration today has been an incessant fruit fly I swatted down with a splat to a tabletop with the efficiency of a ninja warrior. OK, so maybe it wasn’t my biggest frustration.

But then Dr. Shapiro appears, dressed in scrubs and running his hand through his salt and pepper hair. Joan and I stand to hear his recap of surgery and our friends watch the story unfold.

Not encapsulated. Instead angry looking. Probably cancerous. A great team here at the hospital. Chemotherapy and radiation. Can’t be certain we got it all. Even one cancerous cell requires treatment. One cell becomes millions. Pathology report will tell us for certain, in two to three weeks.

Two or three weeks. Another 21 days of waiting and trying not to focus our every thought on what might be around the corner. But the doctor seems to know what will greet us there even if we have to wait to be certain. Wait to find out how urgent the alarm is — for now, at least, the ticking has stopped. We thought it was a clock; now we know it was a bomb.

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