It's with Dr. Nesselhut that Kate went to - same place as Kristen.
A rather beautiful (feel-good) blog post from this website:
ANOTHER SCAN. ANOTHER LITTLE BIG MOMENT.
This week Kate had another of her regular three-monthly scans. Despite this being somewhat routine now, the preceding buildup of stress and anxiety never fades.
From about a week out it’s on our minds – a dull headache that floats under the details of everyday life like the neutral hum of an amplifier not plugged in properly. On the day itself the hum crackles and snaps into an audible distraction that sounds like it’s coming from Nigel Tufnel’s Marshall on eleven.
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It’s hard to focus on what you’re doing and hard to pay attention. Everything that seemed important yesterday, or indeed any day, seems suddenly so inconsequential. How could it be just as important to reply to an email, put your blinker on or sit in for another wip meeting when later today a doctor will read a couple of words off a scan that may change the course of your life.
I remember feeling this before- the moment we found out that Kate’s tumour had returned. It had been three years since the first brain surgery and the regular scans and reports had shifted from every three months to every six. They were always clear and Kate was feeling great. These moments were just a matter of course now and had been shuffled down the importance list below the menial urgencies of a regular day. So I wasn’t there for Kate’s scan and report. When she called me she couldn’t talk and I knew straight away. I borrowed a car a shot across the bridge to meet her.
If we were in a Terrence Malick film this moment would have happened on the outskirts of our small country town at the edge of a wheat field – back lit by afternoon sun, with glowing husks of pollen circling the air and a soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. It would probably be in slow motion too. But our real moment wasn’t quite that Mallick. It was on an unremarkable stretch of concrete footpath on the outskirts of St Leonards. Which is the same as the middle of St Leonards.
The moment if Terrence Malick was directing my life
The moment as it would look if Terrence Malick was directing my life
Driving up the Pacific Highway I spotted Kate through my tears and pulled over – not dramatically screeching up the gutter and over a fire hydrant (another great opportunity for backlit slo-mo photographic glory), but just pulling into a legal parking spot with a half hour limit. I even used my blinker. I jumped out of the car, stepped over a white-dried dog crap on the grass verge and onto an angled slab of cement lifted and bent by tree roots. We hugged and cried in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Except it wasn’t an eternity it was only about a minute before a pedestrian had to get past and I excused us out of the way with a snottled sob “sorry mate, ‘scuse me”. Didn’t this guy know something important was going on here? Couldn’t he walk another way? Or just wait? Shouldn’t everything in the world just stop for a bit while we have our little moment here?
At the time, it’s still a Terrence Mallick moment in my mind. Internally the world has stopped and nothing looks real. Nothing is real because everything is now different. Everything. Regular things aren’t meant to exist in such moments. No pedestrians, no traffic, no meetings. But that’s what really got me – that’s what I remember – they do. Actually, you seem to become so acutely aware of the absolute mediocrity and insignificance of the continuous stream of minutia that makes up our lives.
When I finally stopped dribbling on Kate’s shoulder (another classically un-cinematic detail of reality), we got back into the car to drive home and tell the kids. I remember feeling strangely annoyed that the importance of the moment had already been overtaken by such trivia as putting the key in the ignition, checking my mirrors before puling out and putting my blinker on. I was pissed off that like our local St Leonardian pedestrian, these details were pushing back into our life so quickly. Shouldn’t we be able to teleport instantly home when something so dramatic happens. Do we really have to focus on all the little-shit again?
I don’t for a second pretend there may be some way we can remove the little details or ignore them… but it has crossed my mind that we could probably remove some of the accumulated meaning we attach to them.
Cut back to yesterday and now we’re in the oncologist’s waiting room. It’s bizarrely quiet today. Only a few other people waiting and a lot of empty chairs and old Gourmet Traveller magazines. Less patients didn’t mean less waiting, but it did mean less post-appointment faces to read into. As everyone comes out from seeing their specialist, you can’t help but notice straight away whether they had a “good” or “bad” result. There is no middle ground, no grey area. There are just “good” results (i.e.: nothing’s changed) and “bad” (something’s returned). Good news are the patients who come out with a slightly faster step, hands held tightly, almost sprinting for the front desk to pay and get out before someone can change the news. Eyes may be glassy but the hint of a contained smile or the mere absence of a quivering chin are the telling variables. Bad results are the patients with eye’s that are also glassy, but they are red and deep set. Like they’ve been drowned. Their steps are slow – maybe for the same reason – there’s no rush to get out and maybe the longer you’re there the more chance there is of someone coming to tell you the result has changed.
Reading the body language of other patients though is just a warm up for the main game – reading the body language of Kate’s Oncologist in the moments between when they call her name and when they tell you the result. Did they rush out to call you in? Were they sombre & flat? Did they look happy? or relieved? Did they make eye contact? Did they always walk out that fast? Have they brought a support crew (usually not a great sign).
The wait seems endless. Actually, after a little research I discovered that this is not just a sensation, it’s real. You see, all clocks in doctor’s waiting rooms around the world are supplied by one company and they’re designed to run at half speed. The same company supplies clocks to the Telstra call centre. We pad the sluggish minutes with whispered chat (you have to whisper in those rooms, it’s a rule) and flicking through the impossibly opulent and geographically obscure holiday destinations in Gourmet Traveller magazine. Does this magazine even exist any where on earth outside of the doctor’ waiting room? Maybe they come as a delivery bonus from the clock company. It’s a sick little internal joke for them as they are fully aware of the dichotomy they create putting these Terrence Malick like fantasy worlds within the grey pastel torture chamber of fabric patterns.
The anxiety continues to build and the distracting hum of the day has somehow soaked into my lungs and bloated me like cheap YumCha. It’s been a slow build, but now I’m suddenly aware of how hard it is to breathe. It’s like being winded slowly.
Finally Kate’s oncologist comes out. My heart beats faster… and she walks straight past us. Bugger. Fell for the dummy. What does it mean? is she going to get a bigger report? or more people? or an extra box of tissues? She reappears and leads us into her room. Standing up I was beginning to feel like my throat had turned inside out like one of those deep sea puffer fish that came to the surface too quick.
We walk in and sit down. It’s such an unimportant looking scene. Surely it should be more grand. Couldn’t Eddie McGuire be there with a big gold envelope with a red wax seal all accompanied by a timpani drum roll? He could even drag it out a bit and say “we’ll bring you this result… right after the break.” Now there’s an advertising media space where you know you’ve got the full attention of your captive audience.
But Eddie is not there and there is no gold envelope. Just a small desk and a scattered mess of papers in a quiet room with bad carpet and a disinfected stench. This is it. This is the big moment. We’re sitting on chairs that seem far too plastic and feeble for a moment so big. And then before we can settle into them and get comfortable (if that was ever possible) the doctor mumbles out the news while looking for something under the sea of papers on her desk.
“so the scan is all clear… so that’s good.”
Man, she’s never going to get a job on “The Voice” with announcement presentation skills like that. It was so underwhelming we both leant in closer to prompt her to say it again. Yep… that’s it… “clear scan again and you’re all good.”
The relief is simply indescribable.
We were in there for another ten minutes or so discussing other details and timings for the next scan and Kate’s next trip back to Germany, but really it was just babble. How the hell are we meant to discuss such trivia after that news? Couldn’t she have just announced it then turned around at hit play on a mammoth hidden Bose sound system under her desk to launch Queen’s “Don’t stop me now”? We’d all just jump up and dance around her room and all the other patients and staff join in and we pop champagne as confetti falls from the ceiling? Maybe even Tony Barber could be there with Delvene Delayne.TonyDelvene
But no. The moment is only big in our minds. The world doesn’t change. Reality is still reality – just a lot of little unpolished details cluttering the desktop of our mind.
We leave and walk out. Quick steps – get out before it changes. Other patients read Kate’s result in our faces. Back out into the fresh air and the world of normal speed clocks and you want to jump up and down but the truth is you really just feel like you’ve got the energy to breathe again. We sat in the car and sent the news to family via texts. It sounds impersonal, but the text provides an emotional defence barrier – nothing’s wrong until someone asks how you are. We just took our time and took it all in.
There’s not even that much to say… we know how great this is, we know what it means and I am just happy and grateful. Grateful that Kate is as strong as she is. Grateful that she’s done whatever it takes to get better. Grateful for the surgeons and oncologists and nurses. Grateful for Petrea King and Quest for Life. Grateful for Germany and that we made the decision to go there. And grateful beyond all else, for the incredible and constant love and support from our family and friends. Your support is one of the rare pieces of life where the actual reality supersedes the thought. You are Terrence Malick pictures and Gourmet Traveller locations.
So thank you all. And congratulations Kate.
30 minutes after we’re out and I take another breath that feels deeper again. But the breath turns into one of those stuttering gasps that kids do after they’ve cried for too long. A rapid chain of staccato reverse-huffs that pulls at my ribs and sucks at the skin under my jaw like I was in some NASA G-force simulator. I hadn’t actually been crying at all, but for most of the day the anxiety had choked me from proper breathing.
The big moment is over and all is good. The anxiety hum of Nigel’s Marshall has been silenced and the relative balance of moments and meaning has been temporarily restored. I turn the ignition and flick my blinker on and we pull back out into the traffic of everyday life.
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