Relieved that her appointment with Dr. Substitute was over, the woman walked over to the appointment desk and picked up her schedule. She casually reviewed it as she made her way back to the waiting room and at second glance noticed something slightly disturbing: there were no chemo treatments listed. She turned around and asked the assistant, "Umm...I'm supposed to have some chemo scheduled, but I don't see any of the appointments here?"
"Oh. You will have to go to the chemo desk for that," the assistant replied.
Ooookay. That would have been nice to know!
The woman tried to be patient and headed to the chemo desk. The response she received from the attendant there was equally disheartening: "We don't have any record of you needing chemo."
A bit frustrated, the woman replied, "Well, I know I'm supposed to have chemo today. The doctor told me so and I watched him order it."
Convinced, the attendant made some phone calls.
As the woman sat, thoughts of what should have been filled her mind. She was supposed to be 16 weeks along heading to OB appointments and worrying about buying pregnancy jeans. Instead, she was here in a room full of cancer patients waiting to receive chemo. The two extremes were irreconcilable, and somehow she would need to find a way to reconcile herself to the latter in order to move on with her life.
Thirty minutes later a nurse finally called the woman back to receive her injection. Upon entering the room, the woman noticed that the nurse had two syringes filled with chemo.
"Umm...Is that the correct dosage? I've only ever had one shot," said the woman nervously.
"Yep, it's the same dose as last time. It just depends on how the pharmacist mixes it," replied the nurse and continued preparing the needles without any noticeable concern.
"Are you sure it's the same dosage?"
The nurse looked down at the syringes and then back up at the computer screen. "Yep, it's the same."
"Uhh...okay," the woman said, hesitant.
The residual sting of the shots were like background music to her thoughts as she walked towards the elevator replaying the events of the day. It had been a long one scattered with inconsistencies that made the woman feel uneasy. In the midst of her anxious distrust, the only thing she could do was surrender, trusting that the doctor knew what he was doing, the schedulers knew what they were doing, the pharmacist knew what he was doing, the nurse knew what she was doing, and that ultimately God was in control of it all.
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