Entering the third week of treatment with Mike, I settle back in my chair to wait. I find it ironic that Mike is considered a patient now. That term should apply to the folks who are lined up in chairs waiting for their loved ones to come through the door of treatement while trying to remain patient!

Sitting here week after week, people have come to share their stories with me. Lucy, a young bride in her twenties still shows bewilderment in her green eyes when she tells me that soon after they wed, her husband woke up one morning unable to talk or swallow! As he is only a few years older than she was, she thought at first he had ate something that disagreed with him because she says ruefully- “I don’t cook yet, we do a lot of take-out.” But a trip to the ER that morning revealed an uglier truth. He had oral cancer and it had advanced in a very quick manner infiltrating his throat and lungs. “He never smoked anything. Lucy whispered to me as her eyes filled with tears. “Legal or illegal. We just couldn’t understand.”

They had met in high school, briefly dated and then re-met in college and fell in love. Their plans were to travel the world and Brad wanted to be a travel writer. Lucy loves kite boarding. Now she is reduced to pushing him around in a wheel chair and six times a day pushing fluids down the feeding tube he now has planted in his stomach.

Last week as we sat together, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I looked up from my book and she was crying. She told me that she had woken up early that morning and walked out to the living room. Brad was passed out on pain meds and the house was quiet.
“I sat on the couch and grabbed a quilt and a pillow.” She told me. “I put the quilt over my head, pressed the pillow to my face and cried and screamed for a long time. I am spent.” Then the tears started to really flow; “I didn’t sign up for this.” She said. “I don’t know if I can take any more.” Brad was wheeled out the doors at the moment and I was left with so many words unsaid between the two of us. I pray that she finds the strength she needs to figure out how to deal with each day.

The waiting room is vibrant with color and design. A jigsaw puzzle waits on the table for the more patient of us to finish it. Oragami swans parade across the room- created by local high school students. Scent covered plastic bracelets are available for sale $2.00 apiece. I find it ironic that the one that is emblazoned with the word “Caretaker” is scented in plum. “Is that for plumb worn out? I ask the receptionist who laughs and says “Probably it is.”

So we settle in our chairs. Some of us pass the time texting, reading, one woman knits a scarf. Others stare into space, caught in thought or prayer- who is to know. Me, I write. I stay in my corner with Brandi at my feet waiting for the next story to come along. I get the feeling that many of them want to talk about their experiences but lack the courage. Perhaps in finding a stranger with a supporting shoulder and an ear might open up a dam of emotions best left untouched. But Brandi is a good converstation piece and she brings people closer to me and so I sit and wait.