I am woman

Four days.

Four days is all it’s taken to go from gp referral to diagnosis to hospital treatment.

Lord knows the NHS has its critics who spell out the many reasons why it’s not perfect, but to me it is a beacon of brilliance.

I was fast tracked. My gp had examined me and looked quite worried - never an emotion you want to see cross a gp’s face – so referred me immediately. I had an appointment yesterday at the one-stop breast care clinic at our local hospital.

To say that the care was professional, reassuring and compassionate is a massive, massive understatement.

I had a mammogram (not as uncomfortable as I feared), ultrasound (sticky) and treatment with a consultant (reassuring) all within two hours.

~ I also was given a bonus lesson in how to tie my hospital robe up properly. Useful as I have an MRI pending and I will not have to do my usual flail around in the changing room and hobble to the tube while grabbing onto the ties and trying very hard not to flash other unsuspecting patients. ~

And it turned out that it was a huge cyst. A great whacking sack of breast fluid created thanks to a) my age and b) my hormones.

It was drained – no anaesthetic needed – within minutes. Yes, it might come back and I’ll need to keep being aware but I was done and okay. And I have never been more grateful.

I’d attended the appointment with my long-suffering hubby who has supported me through my many and varied MS issues. He is utterly brilliant.

But I was also struck by the emotion I felt towards the other women sitting in that waiting room. Women hunched holding hands with partners or compulsively clutching their gowns or staring blankly at the ‘breast check’ posters. All with the big, dark eyes and pale, pinched faces of worry.

Faces that had spent days panicking. Or covering up panic because they can’t worry their partners, or their children, their family or their friends. Or panicking only now because they can’t quite believe they would ever have to be here and now they are and its hit them.

And then there were the women who had no one with them, who had made that frightening journey on their own and who might later be making tear-stained phone calls, walking out alone along the sterile corridors.

As I sat waiting for my results it seemed the only, only thing to do was to hope that all of us got out of there with good news – that this unspoken waiting room solidarity could somehow guard us all.

I have no idea what happened to the other women. I don’t know if my silent hope worked. But for one day our lives touched and I felt an overwhelming surge of protection towards my team; my frightened, waiting women.

:: I am woman by Helen Reddy