The Waiting Room

I'm sitting in the radiology department at UCSF, waiting while the central venous catheter is being inserted into Ian's chest. Its been a couple hours. They wouldn't let me in for the procedure, so I'm watching the fish swim around in the waiting room. This is the same waiting room where I sat with Asha toddling around, anxiously awaiting my own cancer treatment here 4 years ago. The same fish tank, the same feelings swimming around in my chest. His chest x-ray earlier today was in the same room where I just had my annual thyroid ultrasound, the results of which were perfectly clear. I beat the odds with a rare and aggressive thyroid tumor the size of a russet potato. We were carried through that storm 5 years ago, and I know we will be carried through this one as well.

But still, tears are welling up and spilling out. They just told me he is being taken to his room upstairs.  I have his huge backpack here. We somehow assumed he would be returning to this waiting room to join me with his strong arms, joking through the hallways and holding hands like we had been doing all morning.  But I'm sure he is drugged, and chemo starts tomorrow, and my old Ian may not be back for a while. And I'm grieving all this. But I know he will be back, when the storm has passed. And this storm is just beginning.