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The next tumor board is tomorrow. It happens every Wednesday. This will be the fourth weekly tumor board since Jason’s biopsy. And, assuming the pathology results still aren’t final today, it will be the fourth that his case won’t make the agenda. We face yet another week of waiting.

What an odd sense of relief of potentially having another “normal” week balanced by the anger and frustration of another week of not knowing, not understanding, and not doing.

Without a plan, the next seven days will look like everyone else’s – just with a brain tumor. The kids will start school this week knowing Dad has a brain tumor. I’ll keep building my new medical practice knowing my husband has a brain tumor. Jason will come home late from coaching football knowing he has a brain tumor. We’ll take the dog for a walk in the evenings knowing we have a brain tumor. Wake up. Repeat. I want this kind of week, and I don’t want this kind of week.

Knowing the other side of medicine is a blessing and a curse, as you might expect. For us, it has helped to dampen the sting of disappointment in this waiting. Right or wrong, it has helped set the expectation that Jason’s tissue is now likely just a number on a slide in an unfortunate, long list of others. Maybe it’s known as “that 41y/o cerebellar biopsy of Borg’s.” Maybe he’s number 31 of 99 charts in the Inbox to be reviewed. We wait not only for real work to be done, but sometimes also wait for buttons to be clicked and notes to be signed. I get it.

I get that there are other biopsies waiting to be reviewed, too. There are other families hoping for good news. There are other patients with brain tumors having seizures and critical neurologic symptoms that need their results faster. I get it. Ours can wait. So, we will.

Still, imagine having brain surgery, and as you leave the hospital, the follow-up appointment is scheduled. 2-1/2 weeks seems like long enough – basically an eternity after all that you’ve been through the first week after finding the tumor. Imagine showing up to that appointment 18 days later full of hope and expectation. You expect answers to the “what next?” question. Now imagine leaving with nothing. No diagnosis. No news. No plan. No hunches. Not even a guess. Just a gut punch of disappointment.

Thankfully, I knew we didn’t have to go to Omaha to get staples removed, and I knew to call to see the status of the biopsy when nothing had been reported on the portal. I knew that a routine follow-up could be done just as easily by a phone call as physically at an office visit 2 hours away, and I knew to prepare my husband that Friday’s appointment was likely to be a let down.

There was, and is, nothing to do except wait. The difference now is that we don’t even have another appointment to look forward to and to hope for. “I’ll call as soon as we know,” is all we have.

And it’s probably not going to be today. Maybe not tomorrow. Potentially not for the next week, either. Is this what it’s like to have a brain tumor? Is this what it’s like to be a patient? To be patient?

Sure, eventually our day will come, and probably then, I’ll wish for another one of these “patiently waiting” days again.

“Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.” Psalm 62:5