We ended up at Fox Chase Cancer Center, in Risk Assessment, after all
Just to make sure.
(Just to set her mind at ease and talk to someone who knew what they were talking about.)
Only I could tell that she was nervous, as we sat in the waiting room,
which is a pretty scary place,
just because every other person in there has cancer.
Anyway, she went in alone.
So brave.
And then they invited me into the exam and consultation. It was ... thorough, professional, directed at Xina, reassuringly normal, Normal, NORMAL!!!
(How little we now about our bodies, how various they are.)
Best of all, compassion and connection oozed out of our caregiver, who listened and made sure we didn't have any more questions, before she let us go.
We exhaled.
We had permission to resume life, as normal.
I felt like a phonograph record suddenly starting again after being lifted, silent, poised over the rotating vinal...picking up the tune right where it left off, as we went out to lunch, chatting casually.
Its a cliche to say that the not knowing is the hard part. But it does feel like suspended animation, in a way, to wait for news like that, like the hovering needle, amazed that somehow the record (read 'life', here) has the temerity to continue rotating below without us, its lovely music just beyond reach.
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