Patience (part 4): The patient’s treadmill
Sometimes life can feel like a series of medical tests and medical appointments for those facing chronic illnesses like cancer. The treadmill of medical care can become a monotonous routine and dominate one’s time and mind. Check-in at the front desk, then wait. Get bloodwork drawn by the phlebotomist, then wait. Shuffle back to a clinic room and have vital signs taken, then wait. Meet the doctor to discuss the results (sorry, the chemistry lab must be running behind today), then wait. Back to the waiting room until the chemotherapy orders are processed, reviewed, double-checked, mixed, and verified. Then off to the chemo infusion suite to sit in the recliner chair, then wait. Get plugged in to the IV, then drip, drip, drip, wait. Finally done, unplug, bundle up, stop by the scheduling desk for the next appointment. Then wait to repeat all again tomorrow or next week or next month. When time and life are so precious, it can feel frustrating to give so much of these to the goal of getting or staying well.
All this waiting time can give the mind time to reflect on the big questions. When will I be able to get back to work, to my normal life, to visit family, to take a vacation again? When will these side effects subside? When will I be able to stop taking chemotherapy? Is my cancer cured? How long do I have left?
These are all critical questions asked by patients of their oncologists every day. Questions that get to the heart of the matter. Questions that pierce through all the optimistic platitudes. Questions that deserve an answer. Questions to which the answers change and evolve over time. Questions that don’t always have an answer.
To be a patient with cancer or other chronic illness requires a special kind of patience. Not only the patience to sit through the Groundhog Day of visits, tests, and treatments. Not only the patience of bearing the weight of symptoms and side effects. But more importantly, the patience of uncertainty. The patience to recognize that your oncologist may not be able to provide you with the surety of answers to the big questions, because he really does not know. His waffling may not be evasiveness but rather true uncertainty about your future. And the patience to hear things that you may not want to hear, predictions that go against your hopes and wishes and prays, recommendations that don’t suit your style or plans. In these times of confusion, anger, polarization, and demonization, we all need to reflect on the virtue of patience. As hard a virtue as it may be to cultivate, this harvest bears great fruit.
