There is no small talk in a cancer waiting room.
I learned that sitting in one for thirty-three days in a row, waiting through my husband’s radiation treatments for prostate cancer. I went in thinking I knew something about fear. I came out understanding something else entirely, and it had almost nothing to do with cancer.
It had to do with us. With what we are capable of with each other, and how rarely we let ourselves get there.
Something happens in that room that does not happen almost anywhere else. I watched it every morning for thirty-three days, and I have not been able to unknow what I saw.
In this episode, I take you inside that room, and I close with a few small things you can try this week, because I don’t want this to be a lovely story you heard once and forgot by the time you got back to your car.
If you have ever sat in one of those rooms, you already know. If you haven’t yet, I hope this gives you something to carry with you before you do.
A glimpse inside:
The unspoken rules we all follow in waiting rooms, and what happens when they fall away. What “how are you” really means in that room. Why being seen by a stranger can feel like too much, and why it might be exactly what we need. And a few small things to carry into your own week.
Nobody in that waiting room was just fine. They were real. And it was the least lonely I had felt in a long time.
Mentioned in this episode:
This is the first in a three-part series for Men’s Health Month. Coming next: my husband Jay’s honest account of prostate cancer from the inside, and a conversation with the nurse practitioner who guided us through it.
