The Weight of Waiting: Navigating a Broken Medical System

Life can go by so fast. Routines, crazy schedules, raising kids. It feels like it's always Friday again, and always summer again, and always school starting again. The days are long and the years are short. Or so they say.

Life can also slow to a screeching halt. Time stands still. Usually from tragedy or shocking news or the sadness life can throw our way.

Every moment feels like a movie. Unreal. And in slow motion.

The days drag in the uncertainty of it all. The moments stay and hold their grip on each passing second.

And the medical system does people no favors.

They tell you you have cancer with an ultrasound report uploaded to their app. No person delivers the news. No doctors to ask questions too. No nurse to support the sorrow, the doubt, the confusion, the anger.

They then say a biopsy is next. Soonest available is a week away. A week away. Weeks can fly by. This week has lasted an eternity.

Erin called every day trying to get an earlier date. Hoping for a cancellation.

"We don't get very many cancellations. Everyone else is as anxious as you are."

Says the nurse to us.

She was kind in saying it. But we are just another day in the office for her. And she only shows up for the paycheck and the benefits. Not her fault. It's hard to show empathy when it's a daily occurrence for her. But for us? This isn't normal. But how do they have no one to guide you? How is the system so broken that they make you wait for days sometimes, weeks often, and months with only fear and anxiety keeping you up at night.

Is this the best we can do?

We can't have same day biopsies once you tell someone they have cancer?

"No…we only do 4 biopsies per day in the afternoons and no one works on Fridays."

What the…

The system is designed to scare you. Erin says to me.

I think it is. Or at least, it is not designed to help you understand or cope or deal with the new reality of cancer.

And, while it seems it could be better, and it could be better, we are strong.

We do our own research.

I now know more about breast cancer than the oncologist.

Me and ChatGPT have run every scenario. Every possible outcome. The chances of each and the likelihood of it all.

When it comes to healthcare, you must be your own advocate. And when you know that to be true, you can cope with its faults, put on your big boy panties, and get to work asking questions, reading every scientific study you can find, finding holistic solutions as well as established western practices, its on me, its on us.

Love, the Murrays