Would you believe...

It was a great weekend. Three busy, sun-drenched days in Portland, Bend, and Beaverton, where I adhered strictly to the post-biopsy recovery regimen of "pound the pavement incessantly". It hurt to sit, so why chance it? Adding to the weekend's luster was the long-awaited arrival (during my absence) of my hotly anticipated household goods, which I've only just started to unpack. Indoor camping is fun, but it's hard to reject the comforting domestication of dishes, sheets, and a few extra uniform t-shirts.

Leaving my roommate sequestered amidst my cornfield maze of boxes, I headed up to Parnassus yesterday to receive my results and treatment plan. My sunny demeanor immediately vanished upon arrival at the oncology clinic on the fifth floor, which rests securely behind the vast and sterile wasteland of the DMZ - the Dehumanizing Medical Zone.

At the edge of the DMZ, there is no clear waiting area or line; just a sign warning you not to pass, lest you interfere with other patients' protected health conversations. So you wait patiently at the sign, unacknowledged, as four staff members sit at their computers, gossiping blindly amongst themselves. You continue to wait, and wait, and wait. They continue to gossip and mill about. Finally a patient who is not so patient, or perhaps one who doesn't read English (or pretends not to), breezes past you and checks right in with one of the staffers. (Try it yourself and they pummel you, screeching from their guard shacks.)

At long last, after a series of coffee, smoke, and cell phone breaks, they summon you with yawning disdain. You fill out an endless sheaf of Xeroxed forms, identical every time, including a laundry list of symptoms you might have experienced since your last visit. (No, no, no, no, no, no, no, and no....next column...no, no, no...) There were a couple boxes to check if you'd had a biopsy or any lab tests since your last visit. I had started my marathon staging day at Parnassus on Friday, so I figured that section was extraneous. "No," said the receptionist. "You definitely need to write that down." She tucked in a page of pre-printed labels. "505 for the folder, 504 for your labs." "I'm not having labs today," I said gently. "I'm here to see the doctor for my results." "Oh, are you sure?" she sniffed distrustingly. "Yes," I smiled grittily, "we confirmed this on the phone when I made the appointment." "Wait over there."

Having threaded through the snipers, you sit gingerly in a "waiting area", consisting of a thin string of chairs winding around a sharp corner. The chairs are almost all filled. Some come and go quickly; others seem frozen in their chairs, there before you arrived and there after you've gone. It's like the line for visas at the embassy during a war. Sometimes a few words are whispered, and one or two people disappear down a back hallway, never to return. The view behind you is beautiful, breathtaking from your cliffside perch, but the chairs are positioned backs to the windows. Instead, you stare at uniformly tan walls and colorful posters in Spanish for lymphoma support groups.

Aides emerge at times and shout a name, but if you're around the corner, it's hard to hear. About a half hour later, after not responding to a mangled fragment of a last name I didn't recognize as mine, they shouted ever more shrilly until I finally figured it was my turn for vitals. Vitals are taken at every appointment, regardless of type or timing: weight, height, blood pressure, blood oxygen, heartrate, and frame size. Why one's height or frame size changes between appointments is beyond me. Then they tried to shunt me across the hall for bloodwork. "I'm not having labs today," I repeated. "Just go across the hall," they said patronizingly. "I'm just meeting with the doctor." "He will still need labs." "I just had all my staging on Friday. I don't need labs today." And so forth.

By the time you've fought across the DMZ, your originally sunny mood has been replaced by a glowering tornado of anger. I walked into a small treatment room and waited for my doctor. I steeled myself for the possibilities. Advanced Stage IV, incurable with less than six months to live....Would you believe bulky Stage III, with an extended treatment regimen and targeted radiation?...How about a stiff neck and a runny nose?

What the tests revealed, instead, was straightforward and relatively benign: involvement on both sides of my collarbone (left & right) and in my upper chest. Being otherwise asymptomatic, this classified me as Stage II, entailing eight weeks of Stanford V treatment starting Thursday of next week. On Tuesday, I'll have a port installed (a direct line to the blood vessels, obviating the poke and prod of the needle army), necessitating complete sedation, about which I'm none too excited. The sedation, that is.

Appointment request in hand and headed out, the DMZ once again lay before me. It took several minutes of frustrated conversation to communicate to the appointment secretary exactly what I needed. He kept quoting me days and dates that didn't line up. The doctor had very clearly written that I was to return next Thursday. "Ok, I've got you down for the 23rd." "But that's this Friday." "No, in June." "But I'm supposed to start Thursday." "Your doctor isn't free until July." "I don't need to see my doctor." "Cheryl [the nurse practitioner] isn't in next Wednesday." "I'm supposed to come in on Thursday." Too bad a pack of rationed cigarettes doesn't work as a bribe anymore.

It's a good thing I kept my customized body armor.