Ten minutes

And there I was. In the exam room, waiting silently, looking at the white walls, apprehension so thick you could cut it with a knife, next to Kyle. Visits like these were starting to become altogether too common and I hated it. Just before the exam room, we had been waiting in a crammed little waiting room with all the other worried faces. Faces seemed to be everywhere, all pained with the same anxious look; lost sheep. So as soon as Kyle's name was called, I just tried to avoid their eyes altogether and canal past them while plopping my baby on my mother-in-law's lap and telling my two-year-old to stay with Grandma.

I was talking to Kyle tonight about this "first" hospital visit. The first of what would be many more to come, thus acquainting myself with the cancer ward walls of the Health Sciences Centre. Because I'm PMS-ing and highly introspective when that happens, I was thinking of this specific scene tonight. I was thinking what an awful way to start off a new marriage. I barely even knew myself, much less the yearling marriage that was taking a mighty hit, and was having a difficult time grabbing onto the previous years alone, without having to deal with this.

The doctor came in, sat down, changed his tone, and with the utmost professionalism, mapped out a course of plan against his diagnosis. The prognosis for cure pretty slim. Thirty percent. I wanted to shudder, to undo what was just done, take my babies and run. It wasn't even half-formed in my head to do so before shutting it down with a ridculous shake of the head. That was just impossible. Not my style. And highly irrelevant.