Speaking Cancer

Later, I understood that what we were trying to do couldn’t be done.”

I reported early one recent summer morning to a Tacoma hospital for an “all-of-a-sudden” surgery. I knew it was coming since I had been diagnosed with cancer months ago, but all of a sudden there was availability, I was ready, and we could finally go cut the tumors out.

There was a line out the lobby at 5:15. I’d had surgeries at this place a few times before, but never saw anything like this. It looked like we were waiting to get on a plane, and that’s how we behaved, slowly edging forward, wary of line-cutters, impatient at the inexplicable delay at the head of a line that, as it turned out, went nowhere.

All we were doing was waiting to write down our first names on a list to be checked in for appointments we each already had, before being herded away in shuffling groups to meet our fates.

There was no place left to sit by the time my wife and I got inside, so we leaned against a pillar. People around us held themselves up on walkers or canes, others sat with overnight bags in their laps. A couple of teenagers in pajamas wandered around obliviously swinging their overstuffed carry-ons, like they were waiting to board a bus to summer camp.

When my name was called, I edged forward through the crowd as another man, about my age, did the same in the company of a young woman whom I took to be his daughter. He gave me a dark look and quickened his pace to reach the check-in desk before me. I glanced at the woman. “Is his name Edward, too?” She looked at me with a blank expression, then suddenly smiled and said, “Yes.”

We were part of the same cattle call, later herded into an elevator, and then into the same surgical unit. We stood next to each other as our name was called again. The man ignored me, but his daughter gave me a warm glance as she followed him into prep.

I was in a recovery room with my wife five or six hours later, swimming back to the surface through all the anesthetic, trying to absorb news from the surgeon. I remember asking for clarification of some kind.

“I just explained that,” the surgeon said.

“No, you didn’t,” I snapped. “You said something, but I am asking you to tell me again.”

Later, I understood that what we were trying to do couldn’t be done, and we’d have to try something else, maybe in a month, maybe in a few months. In the meantime, chemotherapy would continue, along with some other things.

They weren’t going to keep me overnight after all, but to get out of recovery you have to walk around for a while and use a bathroom by yourself. I was on my way to do that, shuffling down a hallway in my socks, still wearing a gown and surgical cap, when I spotted the young woman from earlier waiting outside the bathroom door, her arms folded, looking at the floor.

I figured her dad was inside.

“How is Edward?”

It took her a second to place me, but then she dropped her arms and stood up straight.

“He’s OK, I think it’ll be OK, I don’t know, really.”

She started to fold her arms again, then stopped herself. “How are you?” she asked.

I started to laugh. “I don’t really know either.”

She started to laugh too, but stopped herself.

“It’s more difficult than I thought.” She started to say more, but choked up.

I thought of all the things I could tell her, all of the things that have been said to me; all of those things about our plans, our hopes, our setbacks, our mistakes.

“It is,” I said.

She took in a breath and started to say something. Then the bathroom door opened, and her dad emerged. She took his arm, but he shook her off, and they walked away down the hall.

Ted Olinger lives in Vaughn.