Waiting

I live in a waiting room. For over ten years that has been my residence. Waiting, for some bright spot of news, deciphering the words spoken. Trying with a Mother's heart to glean the meanings and imports of the monotone formulas that the doctors speak.

My oldest son has Crohn's disease. An insidious disease that not even the medical community knows much about. It took over 2 years to even get his diagnosis, after innumerable tests. After ten years, this has not changed much. Always with the tests, and very little with the answers.

It's an odd thing how memory works. Like some malevolent camera, cataloging each tendon thrumming moment of tension and wild hope. The over bright florescent lights burning that bluish after image, creating yet another indelible slide show, for some photo album from hell. As I sit here now, it's as if I am browsing through some horrific scrapbook of hospitals, doctors offices, and the ever desolate waiting rooms.

You never really get to leave the waiting room, you take it with you. Carrying it, unseen by the world at large, the weight of that room and it's bleakness pressing down on you each weary step you take. That has been our family's reality for far too long. At the nexus of the waiting is my son. A bright and handsome young man, with all the triumphs and joys that go with a healthy and athletic young teen. Then...that first frightening doctors appointment. The worry over the weight loss and anemia. You become a yearning supplicant, reaching for enlightenment. Why? What can be done? Will he live? Whatever Gods hold sway in these sterile temples, they remain mute.

This last summer, my son had four surgeries. My sons worst fear had come to pass. An ostomy. A 23 year old young man with an ostomy. The doctors finally came and spoke to us, painting a rosy picture of how life with a bag hanging off his side, wasn't such a bad thing. Downplaying the vacuum tube hanging off of the 9 inch open wound in his stomach. All the while patting his feet with cold powdery hands, and reassurances that this was only temporary. My son and I exchanged the look. The one where we acknowledged the new waiting room we had just been sent to. He clutched me hard, trying his bravest best to not fly to pieces, as he tried to swallow his panic. I smiled wistfully and held his feverish, emaciated frame to me, all the while reassuring him, " We'll fight though this. Everything will be fine! Let Mom take care of you. Try to get some rest." All those formulatic soothing words every mother is handed down through some unknown genetic memory.

As the date approached in this current waiting room, for his reversal surgery. We lived in hope. Hope for the scheduling and the flight back from British Columbia to his surgeons in Michigan. Fingers crossed, wishes unstated so we didn't break the magic. His body trying to rally after the focused and almost maniacal regimen of nutrition and medication. We hold that hope to us as a talisman. The phone rang over three thousand miles from Michigan. It was one of his Father's family. Informing my son that his medical coverage had been dropped......There will be no surgery done. Not there. My son lopped off like a gangrenous limb, for committing the sin of need. No matter, they have their own cirrhosis to live with.

About face and exit that waiting room. Into the next, the Medical Services in Canada. We count our blessings, that we had begun immigration 3 years prior. In the meantime, our hope and resolve undaunted, we wait. In this new waiting room in our adopted country, my husband and his family wait with us. No more, the isolation and cold eyes of strangers, as I grapple with trembling hands, the endless Styrofoam cup of muddy coffee. The holy icon of all waiting room denizens.

We still have no clear answers, no solutions, and no surgery. We live with fear and abysmal disappointments. Yet, we remain hopeful and hold our son to us as we all wait together. In our perpetual waiting room, we hold forth. The togetherness makes the grip on hope a bit more solid. While, we wait...