the waiting room

and then the doctor comes in and he’s not rushing, i’ve been here for about two hours by now and i thought i was just going into the doctor’s office and they were gonna send me away with a take two of these everyday for ten days and i was very proud cuz it had been here for like five months and i just didn’t do anything about it and this morning i finally did and now i am in the emergency room and whatever this thing is, it is sort of gushing and wet and shiny and whatever it leaves behind dries on the skin and grabs at any fabric and leaks through band-aids, and the doctor looks at me and he tells me to lift my gown and i start to do it and then he asks would you be more comfortable if someone else was here? and i just think buddy i am in the emergency room right now, how comfortable do you think i’m gonna get here? and i say i don’t mind, and he says ok and then he says let me actually get a chaperone and he steps behind the curtain and calls for someone and i just know that there’s gotta be some kind of terrible story here and a woman shows up and she is beautiful and she doesn’t say anything and i finally lift my gown. and course he sees it in the lone three hours in the last five months it is not breaking through the fabric, but he pokes it,

and when he pokes it he says, and i’m being so for real right now seriously he says these words exactly, when he pokes it he says it is gnarly and this is the emergency room and so he knows what it means to be gnarly, and the doctor says if it was one thing i would’ve been dead right now or at least barely able to move and at the least of the least, he would’ve seen me much sooner, and i say ok, because what else are you supposed to say here, like yea i know, it just kinda freaked me out and i was like maybe it’ll go away but then it kept getting worse and then i was like, oh shit i should deal with that and because i acknowledged that i should do something about it, that was basically the same as doing something about it and so in effect nothing was done and now we’re here and he looks at me, and the tone and gaze doesn’t change so i have no reason to believe this is anything more, and he goes is it draining? and again, of course he sees it in the lone three hours my tit isn’t covered in oil and pus, and so i say i mean, just look at the shirt i wore in which had not a clump but more like the shirt just kind of remembered my boob, you know, this perfect crusted relief of it and he picks it up and i half-want him to say ya man that’s not good because truly it is not, but he doesn’t say anything at all, not a word. and he asks does it hurt? and i say no, it’s mostly just itchy, which is definitely true and also kind of undersells the particular kind of itchy,

which is a kind of itchy where your stupid body isn’t stupid enough to actually itch the thing very often thus this gnawing kind of itchy and to the point where you barely even register it and your nails dig at it without a thought, and you are making these little deals with it all the time, these i don’t wanna pay for this yet or right now and so i’ll go around it you know, i’ll itch below and above and to the side, i’ll fling my fingers up and if they happen to catch the thing itself, then it doesn’t really count and most of the time, it doesn’t register until it is unbearable really, this overriding urge and when you finally give in and the distance closes, all this fuzz floods your skull and brushes behind your eyes and for a moment all is right in the world.

but i just tell him that it’s itchy, because again, anything else makes me sound crazy and godforbid doctor bob (his real last name, which like, come on) thinks i’m a crazy person, and then he says do you have any fever or chills? and i don’t and so i say i don’t and then there’s kind of this silence, like a woman who goes all nine months and a baby drops out of her and she had no idea that there was a baby inside her, and he’s doing that thing doctors do where he’s thumbing through papers on a clipboard, and i have this one moment where i wanna become a doctor because it just seems so cool to stand and look at a clipboard in this completely unremarkable white room and there’s this pathetic thing shriveling up on a bed, and he leaves for a few minutes because apparently he’s gotta look at something and i say ok and i turn on the tv because my phone is dying and i have to do something at all, and there are 25 channels and four of them are news, four of them are spanish, five aren’t getting anything, six of them are showing either procedurals i’ve never seen or movies i’ve never heard of, two don’t seem to know what they are, and four are basically discovery or national geographic, and so there is nothing on tv, in a way that makes me wonder if cable tv just doesn’t exist anymore and we just haven’t realized it yet,

and so i just put on a random channel and lie down and this show comes on and there’s this older white bottle blonde lady on the screen wearing an extremely cyan blazer and this nice yellowy white button-up with flowers on it, and she says this is a game show called “25 words or less,” which i guess is something like taboo but without the banned words and instead with the rule that the speaker has to get their team to guess six words while only saying 25 words themself, and i just think i wish derrida was alive to see this and the game starts and the first batch is “high-rise, denver, bar, crawl, frantic, and piston” and i think to myself this is easy as shit i could totally do this and boom there goes high-rise, 22 words left, and then denver, 21 words, and then crawl, 15 words, and then bar, 9 words, and then piston, 3 words, and there are about 30 seconds left and now he’s got frantic and he says hurried, panic, fast and his teammates say frazzled? running, fleeing, chaos, etc. and now there are seven seconds and you can just see it in his eyes, they get so close, so so so close, they’re dancing around it they’re standing on top of it and inside it and for whatever reason they just can’t fucking get it, and the prize isn’t even good but you can just tell it’s not about that, you know, it’s this spirit-of-the-game-type thing, and he drops his head down and his hands are flying everywhere like YOU’RE SO CLOSE JUST REACH A LITTLE FURTHER and the buzzer goes off and he throws his card in the air and in that moment i am just riveted, i’m gone and just then the doctor comes back,

and he pulls up a little stool from nowhere, and he sits down and he looks me in the eye and i’m in the emergency room, which you know is not exactly where you go when things are going well and if a doctor is sitting down, there’s just no way that’s good, and i ask if they found anything and of course they did and he goes we think it could be breast cancer and literally all i can say, the only words that leave my mouth, are ok, ok, ok, ok ok ok and i’m looking around the room as a two-ton anvil drops on my chest but i try to make my body go limp or at least make it feel a lighter so i can pull myself out and so i say that’s like not great is it? and i chuckle and like, obviously it wasn’t a good joke, but if i were a doctor and my patient started chuckling i’d at least throw ‘em a bone, but his face doesn’t change and he’s like no it’s not. if it was an infection, it’d’ve been way worse by now and it’s draining and you don’t have any other symptoms and all i can remember about this is just looking at the ceiling and i ask isn’t it kind of weird that i’d get breast cancer right now? just cuz, you know, i’ve only had [my tits] a few years? and he says he’s not an oncologist and can’t say for sure and so i’m like could this be like an hrt thing? and he says he’s not an oncologist and can’t say for sure, and then i’m like ok, ok. is there anything else you’re looking for? and he says listen i’m just an er doctor. my job is to make sure this isn’t an emergency and refer you out. and i say ok, and then he goes we ordered an ultrasound an hour ago to confirm but just letting you know one of our machines is down so it’s gonna be a while before we know anything and he just walks out of the room. just walks out. and i can’t believe it.

and now i’m just waiting, and i’m texting and calling everyone i know and have met and will meet and i’m tweeting and posting instagram stories because one of the very best feelings in the world is posting something from the hospital your friends and people you forgot about reach out like omg are you okay??? and you get to be like i’m staying strong…thank you for your support and your friend shows up and it’s all about you, the very most special girl in the world for a few hours, and i’m waiting there for four hours and i keep looking around the room at these pale blue walls that are somehow kind of dark and the red outlets on either side of the bed and i can hear over the intercom the guy going trauma team white to trauma room 3; ETA 5 minutes chicka-chickaw because apparently this really is scrubs and i try to figure out if i’d be the a-plot, the tragic and otherwise healthy 25-year-old trans woman who went into the doctor with a rash and she has this way about her, this real ease and good humor, and she connects with the doctors and then they have to tell her she has cancer and what’s this? she’s not breaking down??? she’s making jokes and mad at the 25 words host and just seems ok???? what strength! what resolve! or just the c-plot where a doctor learns to speak more carefully and with more compassion only to completely forget it three episodes later, and anyway i’m waiting here for hours, for just so long and i keep trying to take solace in the fact that at least i am not at work and that if i get cancer it would be fine actually,

and my chest is still tight and even if i told the doctors they’d be like well yeah, duh and every time i laugh my back arches like a hand is reaching down from the heavens to snatch me away and the earth is using all its weight to hold down my feet, and i can feel the hooks in the back of my neck because i’ve decided that i’m actually not worried and so everything is ok because i’ve decided that i’m actually not worried and i’m gonna be the easiest patient this doctor ever had and all of my friends are at work and my family is at work and my siblings are at school and so i am just sitting here and my stomach is empty and the nurses won’t feed me but everything is ok because i’ve decided i’m actually not worried and now i realize i’ve been here in this bed for four hours and my eyes are beginning to do sink back into my face because i’ve been staring at screens for all four of those hours and i want to take a walk but that’s not really how being in the hospital works and this thought keeps coming back, where i am lying on my bed and i’m completely hairless and you can see all my bones and my lips are parched and i am holding my dad’s hand and he’s looking at my with tears rolling down his face and he’s saying he loves me and i’m saying you know it’s funny, i never really thought i was gonna make it to 50 anyway and he just looks at me and i chuckle and my mom’s hand is glued to her cheek and everyone is in tears and i drift off and for years, everyone praises my words and i get the tupac what-might-have-been thing because now it’s been four hours and i call the nurse and before i can speak she asks when am i going to get my scan? when can i eat? what’s taking so long? because i suppose i’m no different than anyone else. and

then an orderly comes in and the nurse tells me that the ultrasound people are ready and he grabs me and my friend (whose arrival an hour or two earlier made me calm in the way where it’s like, we can’t BOTH be freaking out) takes a picture of me smiling with both thumbs up and they cart me through this impossibly long hallway and into this giant elevator, which ruled cuz i didn’t wanna walk, and they take me into this big room, and it’s exceptionally dark and the nurse is this wonderful white lady with blonde hair and a full beat and in any other place i would love her and so right now i am obsessed with her and i say to her if this is cancer i’m gonna be so annoyed and when she sees the thing, she says oh nooooo how did that happen :(( and i say i have no idea ;/// and with this clear and cold gels somehow both thick and stinging, she rubs my boob and then places the wand on top and it’s very strange because i can see the computer, like it’s right next to me and clearly they don’t care if i see it but it all looks like the moon with all these craters and ravines and cracks that prove sometime earlier water once flowed here, and she is scanning it and looking at it from every angle and she is not saying anything and i hear all these little clicks and i can see pictures being taken and labeled and i feel like it is bad etiquette to ask what is happening but i ask anyway like so what are you actually looking for and i expect to see some throbbing or fuzzy or otherwise complicated mess of things and she says she is just looking for dark spots where light should be and for ten minutes i try desperately to see if there is anything there and i ask finally is it cancer, like should i be worried and she goes, and i’ll never forget it and i’ll love her forever for it, honey i’ve seen a lot of breast cancer and i don’t see anything remotely close to breast cancer here and i throw my hands up and say woohoo and i tell my family like i am the boy who cried wolf but i actually believed i saw the wolf and they are all thrilled and they wheel me away and

they send me home and i walk outside and the world is very far away still like it genuinely feels like i’m standing ten feet behind whatever it is that’s in front of me and i drive home and i just kind of want to scream i’m dying and i haven’t eaten all day and all this stuff just wants out but i don’t even have the energy. and then i start thinking of mike davis and his ecology of fear and i think of this very calm 150 years, this anomalous time of relative peace and the 15 quakes that should have happened and the catastrophic rains that should have fallen and i am driving home and i stop by el taurino in westlake/macarthur park/pico-union and i just want to go home all the pieces i get to write now about cancer and fear and the general posture of things-yet-to-come-but-probably-will-not and,

the ground is apparently moving all the time and we don’t even feel it and every time he describes the friction or temblor my brain stops working and i literally cannot imagine it and before i left the nurse handed me a pill and said it will probably work but it might not and if it doesn’t then we gotta start worrying and the pill was too big and i knew the pill was too big because most pills i’ve ever found were too big and she looks at me and she says try and i say okay and i try and what do you know, i start to feel like i’m choking and i keep telling myself i’m actually not choking but my throat doesn’t care and i run to the sink right next to the chair where my friend has been sat for like four hours, and i start throwing up water and i tell him to leave for a second and also mucus and either i am throwing up blood or the red pill got torn up somehow already and after like five minutes i think the pill finally goes down and the nurse goes so you’re not good at pills and she says

i can get a different one that i can crush up which fine whatever now it’s done and i don’t have to think about it, and the tostada from el taurino is the first thing i’ve eaten all day and magically i feel better and i go to the bar 20 minutes after i get home and i go with one of my best friends in the whole world, and we talk you know about the fear and like fr, why did the doctor even say breast cancer, like i feel like i’d want to be 100 goddamn percent certain before i did that if i were him and a few drinks later i am laughing and talking and we are having fun and this whole time i just kind of know that i’m not disappointed i don’t have cancer but i can’t stop thinking about the fact that i wasn’t even that shocked when the doctor said i might have it, like it didn’t really take the wind out of me that way it’s supposed to, i just kind of was like ok i guess i’m doing a cancer thing now like i spent 25 years writing checks and i always knew i was gonna cash them and i remember riding home in the backseat when i was like 11

and it’s dark out and we’re in the burbs so you can still see some of the stars and i’m just looking there and i realize the size of things for the first time, these stars bigger than god and older than death way fucking out there and they’ll be here for way longer than me because i’m already 11 and if i’m lucky i only got eight more of these left in me, and maybe two or three with a body that still moves and maybe six or seven with a working brain and i just keep clenching and i don’t know if there’s anything after this and i’ve always had this thing, you know, where i need to find things out, i cannot accept the unknowns of things and i just want to find out what it actually is, like what will or will not wait for me, and again i’m still just at the bar, all this is happening in maybe like five or ten seconds, and right before i snap back into reality and drink the night away, it dawns on me that while i was lying down on that bed, part of me was relieved that i’d finally be able to find out.