For me, the defining thing about New York Hospital is that a dear friend passed away somewhere here within these walls. Now it's my turn for their ministrations.
“I've come to part with my left breast,” I announce, straight-faced, to the receptionist at the desk.
“What is your name and birth date?” is her reply.
I look at my watch: it says 9:00 o'clock. I feel an unexpected rush of loneliness. Why didn't I make sure a close someone would be with me?
As if in answer to my thoughts, Dolores rounds the partition of the waiting room. I'd told her not to come but was overruled. .
I finish registering, when Beth, who I'd hired for the day, steps along side of me. “Sorry,” she said. “Traffic was terrible.”
“Did I hear right? Did the receptionist say ‘Go down to New Claire on the second floor?”
“Nuclear Medicine” the sign says on the door to the second floor
“I guess they'll use atom bombs to blow away my cancer,” I said, leaving Beth and Dolores in the waiting room.
The radioactive dye is injected into what's called the sentinel node. The sentinel node is headquarters. If it's clear, the theory is, the rest of the lymph nodes are cancer free.
My left breast is marked with a big arrow. The radioactive dye doctor eyes me, as if I were a wild horse that will escape any minute. I tell her that she looks like Queen Elizabeth…. young Queen Elizabeth.
She asks me my name and birth date and leads me to the room where the technician, Ahman, sits in front of two or three computers. The doctor leaves saying she'll come back soon.
Ahman talks about America and its effect on his daughter. He worries she'll lose her modesty. I'm rubbing my breast in circles as the doctor instructed, so that the dye moves faster into my system.
“Let's do it,” I said.
“But the doctor's not back yet,” Ahman said.
“It's been over a half an hour.”
And so he helps me onto the steel table – holds my wrist so my left arm is over my head. His hand is warm and comforting and earthy. I'm sandwiched between two steel slabs. He returns to the computer screens. There's an eerie silence.
“See anything?” I ask.
(pause)
“Ahman?”
(pause)
“What are we looking for?” Ahman asked.
“LYMPH NODES 101!” ‘I hope the surgeon is better prepped,' I think to myself.
Eventually he tells me there's one lymph node the size of a pinhead on the screen.
“That's the sentinel,” Ahman said
Minutes later I return to Beth and Dolores and the waiting area. Ahman escorts us to the elevator that takes us back to the ninth floor and the pre-operative room.
A nurse, who's having a bad day, asks my name and birth date. She gives me a packet of pajamas and slippers and a head covering. Later she barks at me to try again. I have them on backwards.
I sit in the pre-op waiting room. The chairs are in a U shape against the wall, all facing one another. There are other pale-face patients in pj's like me with their significant others in street clothes, most of them talking on cell phones. I'm next to a nervous young tattooed man, who's crossing and uncrossing his legs.
“What are you here for?” I ask.
“Exploratory,” he said. “Every time I have sex, there's blood all over the place and I'm having trouble urinating.”
“Gosh!”
Three chairs become vacant on the other side of the room. I move so Beth, Dolores and myself can sit together.
We're waiting and waiting and then waiting some more. It's passed my scheduled surgery time. My mouth is dry, my stomach – jittery, and my mind…my mind is drifting to the clouds. I've had no water or food for fourteen hours. Nurses come and go to pick up patients.
Hours slowly tick by.
Cleo, a thin nurse that resembles a short Naomi Campbell, startles me from a daydream fugue. She asks in a loud voice my name and birth date. Then she takes my temperature and blood pressure. They want me to sign a paper agreeing to an expander being inserted after the mastectomy.
“I don't want reconstruction now,” I said.
“Why's that?”
“I don't want to be under that long.”
“Once you're under, you don't know you're under.”
I recall how beautiful Dr. Talmor, the plastic surgeon is. Such beauty can't make a mistake.
“Okay, let's do it,” I hear myself say. I sign the release. I'm somewhere far away looking down on all of this.
Finally at 3:00 o'clock Juanilla, a Jamaican, comes to the door. She asks me my name and birth date. They seem to have a very short memory here.
“It's time,” she said.
At the elevator, a rush of excitement fills my body. I hug Beth and Dolores goodbye. I may never see them again. My mind flies to outer space.
The elevator doors close. I grasp Juanilla's arm. Her arm is large and steady and it seems as if she ….is it really…yes…. it seems as if she's wearing a formal dark suit. . I feel secure. A kind of virgin purity courses through my veins as we go up and up and up.
We step off the elevator into a wide grey corridor. Are we…yes…we must be walking down the aisle. Ta da da ta….Da da da ta….the wedding march is playing softly. Am I marrying my first husband, John, all over again? Maybe this time we'll get it right.
Suddenly two grand doors fling open. A handful of people in white are waiting as Juanilla and myself enter. Oh God! And me with these ugly pj's on!
We greet the wedding guests. Everyone's masked but I can hear someone asking my name and birth date. Another asks me to open my mouth and stick out my tongue. They help me onto a steel slab. Puffy bands are fastened round my legs. Someone puts a ring on my finger. Ouch! The ring is sharp and sticks into my flesh. The room swirls. .
“Where is he?” I cry. “I want to see him.”
“Wait!” a muffled voice said. “She wants to see him…she wants to see him”…reverberates in whispers around my head.
“Where is he…?”
“Hello there!” says a voice from nowhere. It dawns slowly, that it's Dr. Swistel.
“I'm sorry we're so late,” he said.
“That's okay,” I murmur. Suddenly, everything becomes clear and sparkling white. I'm not getting married. I'm getting my breast cut off. I'm in the here and now.
“You've decided on reconstruction.”
“Well, it's the “in” thing,” I said. “Did you have lunch?”
“Oh yes…two martini's!” he teased.
There's much laughter as everything goes mercifully dark.
Two hours later Dr. Talbot plants a flower on my chest after the harvest. But I don't know anything about it yet. For two and half hours more, I'm still in darkness. It takes a long time to beautiful.
© copyright 2007 marian hailey-moss