The Waiting Room

Dedicated to everyone who knows this experience all too well.

There are three people on laptops, six listening to iPods and one person is on a cell phone even though there is a sign that clearly says to not use phones in this room.

But no matter what anyone is doing they all have the same look on their face. And that is the worst thing, I think. That is the thing that I cannot take anymore.

So I mutter something to my mom about the bathroom and slip out of the room. I walk through the hallway and start a near run out the door. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the smell of the hospital, the quiet of that room and the look on everyone’s face. I can’t take the look on my mother’s face and the tears in her eyes.

It’s been five hours today. It was longer last month.

I sigh as I sit on the curb with my head resting between my knees. I wonder how much longer before we know…no matter what they say, the longer the surgery the less the chances of…the less the chances of…

My throat constricts painfully and I feel the bile rising. I can’t even think the words.

I run a frustrated hand through my matted hair and wish I had something to destroy. Last time I took my cell phone and threw it against a brick wall. My mom made sure my new phone was left at home.

I walk back into the building. I walk past the gift shop and various people…some are smiling and some aren’t but the closer I get back to the room the fewer smiles I notice. I enter the room and head for the same corner my mom and I have been camped out in since five this morning.

As I sit down the phone rings. Everyone in the rooms stops any activity and stares at the black phone, simultaneously hoping it is for them and for someone else.

The volunteer wearing a cheery pink outfit calls out an unfamiliar last name. I turn my attention back to my lap as three people walk up to her. I already know what she will tell them. No, she’ll say, she doesn’t know how it went, but the doctor will be in to speak with them in a few minutes. She’ll smile reassuringly and they will sit back down with their eyes glued to the door.

This is the surgery waiting room. This is Hell.

Eventually a doctor walks in. He spots the family and they stand. He motions for them to join him in a private room to the side.

Don’t go in there, I warn silently. Everyone in the room who flinches knows the rule just as well as I do. The private room is for bad news. The private room is to tell you away from prying eyes that, no, they didn’t make it. To tell you that they did everything they could and they are very sorry for your loss.

The room even has a back exit door so that you don’t have to go back into the waiting room. People who go into the private room do not come back.

I dig through my bookbag until I find a book assigned for a Political Science class. I try to read about the implications of the J-curve in Eastern Europe but find that I can’t really bring myself to care. I fling the book and it hits the chair across from mine.

My mother gives me a look and asks pointedly if I got the book out just to throw it.

I don’t answer because it actually was one of the reasons I searched for that particular book – it is the heaviest I own.

The one feeling you never expect to feel while you wait for your father to get out of surgery is boredom. I brought my laptop with me but I’ve already watched one movie and can’t bring myself to do anything else on the machine. I brought my iPod but got tired of listening to music after thirty minutes.

The only thing left to do is stare at the flat screen television on the other side of the room. The screen doesn’t show anything that would interest most people, though. It lists all the surgeries for the day.

It looks like it belongs at an airport – listing incoming flights, delays and cancellations.

Green means in surgery.

My dad’s has been green for a while. My eyes scan across the line for the hundredth time that morning. Cancer. The word mocks me from the screen. Surgery. Cancer. Estimated time 8 hours.

The words become blurry and jumbled and it takes me a few minutes to realize this is because I have tears in my eyes. I furiously wipe at my eyes before childishly bring the neck of my sweatshirt up to my nose and my knees to my chest.

The phone rings again and this time I do recognize the name. My mother walks to the desk and I once again feel the bile rising in my throat. This is hours before the estimated time…too early isn’t a good thing.

I can hear nothing but a ringing in my ears as I stare at the door for my dad’s doctor.

It feels like hours before he comes through the door.

He walks to us and gives my mother a nod. I stand awkwardly next to my mother when he asks us to step in the private room.

We follow him through the gates of Hell.

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Er. So…umm…yea, I guess the story pretty much speaks for itself. I’m sure that was not very happy or entertaining to read. I’ve dreamed this for like the last three nights so I hope by just writing it and posting it will stop. Like I said at the beginning, dedicated to any of you who have been through this. As you probably guessed, my dad had cancer and, well, the surgery waiting room can be a very haunting place.