Sweet relief from cancer's fear

The Boston Herald

This is the third time I have come here. I should be at ease, but I'm not. All day the appointment has hung over me like a veiled threat. It's just a routine check-up, I know. I have nothing to fear.

And yet...

The waiting room at the Sagoff Center at the Faulkner Hospital tries to dispel all fear. It has the cushioned intimacy of a guest house or a five star hotel.

Floor that is not polished hardwood, is carpeted in a restful shade of blue-green. The chairs are Queen Ann, in hues of dusty rose. There are couches, rich mahogany tables, lush hanging plants. Even the warm brick walls make this appear to be a pleasant place to wait.

It is a pleasant place, physically comfortable. But no one is comfortable here; everyone is slightly on edge.

There are five women, including me, waiting to be called beyond this room. A solitary old man, who looks up every time the door to the adjacent room opens, seems to be waiting for someone inside. No one speaks. No one ever does. People read books or pretend to. The books are props, something to hold on to. The usual camaraderie of women who are waiting for an appointment is missing. There is no bonding at all. Is this because there are no children here, and it's children who make us reach out, who force us to talk? Or is simply that no one here feels like talking?

One of every nine women will contract breast cancer in her lifetime. This is a fact. Which of us will it be?

When a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer a year and a half ago, I couldn't go anywhere without counting the women in the room and thinking who will get it and who won't? Who already has it? And why?

It is a treatable cancer, her doctor told her. The survival rates for women with early-stage node-negative breast cancer are good. The statistics are in your favor. There are worse things, he said.

At the time there didn't seem to be anything worse.

A woman calls my name. I walk to the front desk and am handed a sheet of paper. "Check off the reason you're here," the receptionist tells me. I mark "routine exam."

Back to the parlor again. It is even stiller. All I hear is the air conditioner's hum, and the rustle of pages being turned.

My name is called once more and I exit the parlor and walk through a door straight into a hospital setting. This time there are 12 women sitting in utilitarian chairs lined up against beige walls. All the women wear blue and white seersucker robes. Age and shoes are all that differentiate us now.

This room is mauve and looks more like a lobby of a Motel 6 instead of a Four Seasons. Closer to the machines, all books are abandoned. We thumb through easy-to-read newspapers and magazines instead. But once again, no one reads and no one speaks. It's as if we are all holding our breath.

The women who have passed their test, who have seen a doctor and been told to go home, walk briskly past those of us who are still waiting. I think at first that I am imagining their sudden ease, but I am not. Each walks as if she has shed a burden.

In succession, more names are called. Miss and Mrs. disappear, then return, to wait once again while a doctor reads their x-rays.

The scariest part isn't the waiting. It's the whir of the machine, inspected just two months ago, June '91, the sticker says. The machine that's supposed to save lives. Cancer detected early can be cured.

Yet how I hate the sound of this thing, its indifferent whir, the wooosh that forces the technician away from it, behind a protective partition. Is this the right choice? Is this screening necessary?

Once more I hear my name. You're all set, the doctor says. See? There have been no changes. She smiles as I leave. I smile, too. Suddenly it feels like I made the right choice.

I walk outside the building down a narrow path and in a small garden, roses bloom. I didn't notice them on the way in, this cluster of yellows and pinks and reds, but I linger now before them and inhale the sweetness of life.