The appointment was scheduled for 1:30 pm. We were given instructions to arrive early, so we did. We also did quite a bit of waiting...and waiting. There was so much waiting that it wouldn't all fit in one waiting area. So as our bodies flowed from waiting area to waiting area, our impatience almost overflowed along with us... I was able to contain mine. Daniela's was contained by the required, routine, and repetitive paperwork. Once again, she had to retell her medical history, a retelling without an audience, an infuriating banality. Fill in the blank. Check the appropriate category. I sensed the volcanic voices...her Sicilian totem, Mount Etna...a chorus of arias steaming below the surface. No eruptions today, thankfully.
As Daniela and the other patients scribbled away, reproducing themselves again and again in fragments of medical significance, I noticed the irony.... Here we sat in an oncology department's waiting area. I glanced around at the many other patients, the purpose of their visit to seek treatment for metastasis unchecked, as they diligently spread check marks from page to page, an efficient and encouraged reproduction, not of cancerous cells, but rather of cursive signs. This space for cancer patients, their bodies colonized by replicating malignancy...willing recipients of life-saving chemotherapy, was transformed into a space for replicating medical bureaucracies...willing recipients of life-numbing monographs. Who will invent a chemotherapy for metastatic bureaucracy?
I will ground the poetic flights for a moment. Here is another flight schedule...Chemotherapy information:
Georgetown University Hospital
Chemo Session 2: February 8, 2007; *TC Regimen
Chemo Session 3: February 29, 2007; *TC Regimen
Chemo Session 4: March 21, 2007; *TC Regimen
(*Taxotere/Cyclophosphamide)
Notes:
1. Daniela will have a full CT scan before her chemo session on the 18th of January. This will provide a baseline for future monitoring and also confirm the lack of metastatic activity elsewhere (B"H), from neck to pelvis.
2. The chemo infusion treatments will be at Georgetown U. Hospital, a total of four (4) infusions, three (3) weeks apart. Daniela will have to visit Georgetown the day after each chemo session for a dose of Neulasta, a white blood cell booster.
3. Once the chemo sessions end, Daniela will schedule the second major surgery to finalize the reconstruction process. Concurrent appointments with the plastic surgeon will dot our calendar during the course of chemo sessions.
During the final few minutes of the appointment today, Dr. Liu, another physician with an uncannily soothing bedside manner, tried to ease Daniela's concerns about the upcoming CT Scan. After Dr. Liu left the room, I repeated..."The scan is a baseline, a photographic control they can compare to variables" [e.g. cancer activity]. Daniela just looked at me, her resurgent anxiety framed by the tension in her torso. "The good news is that you just have four cycles of chemo...," I gestured. She took a deep breath while biting her lower lip, then settled, "I'm still going to lose my hair...."Here is the day in images (cum captions)...
To view the web album, and read the captions at your own pace...click here:
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