dancing days

Her name was Genevieve. She was a little older than my own mother, her eyes hard and dark and just a little desperate. The card above her bed was printed with all the details that defined her. Name. Age. Surgery to be performed. Left mastectomy. She sat silently, her hopes and fears hidden behind her impassive front as the evening wore on in its predictable pattern. Patients came back from surgery, anesthesiologists made their rounds, surgeons interviewed their new admissions. When Dr. Bruce made his way to her bed, Genevieve made her move and threw the wrench into the next day's carefully planned surgery schedule.

Non, she told us, her voice steeled against a hidden pain. Je ne veux pas. I don't want to.

We sat with her, reasoned with her, explained that her chances of survival, even in this country that has patchy access to a grand total of two different chemotherapy drugs, would be incredibly high if she let us do the operation. That the surgeon's knife was her best shot in an uncertain world. But Genevieve was adamant; she refused to sign the consent form.

Dr. Bruce eventually gave up and came to tell me the plan. Don't put in an IV yet. Feed her dinner. Give her time to decide. She'll let us know in the morning. So we put away her chart, gave her a plate of fufu and sauce and left her to her thoughts. Later in the evening, her nurse, Ursula, had a quiet moment and pulled a translator over to Genevieve's corner. After a long talk, she came back to explain to me why Genevieve would refuse a free, life-saving surgery.

It turns out that Genevieve isn't alone in her sickness. She had a sister, but her sister had the same problem. She waited too long, and by the time she had her surgery, it was too late. Genevieve also had a mother. Same story. They both had the surgery we were recommending to Genevieve. They both died. The family must be cursed; it was no wonder she was scared.

But I work with an amazing team of nurses, women from around the world who are filled with love and compassion and who will do anything to see their patients be healed. By the end of the evening, Ursula's quiet persuasion had broken through Genevieve's fear, and the next day, she went to the operating room as planned. The day after that, she was sitting up in her bed, calmly fashioning basket holders out of yarn and rope. In anyone's books, this would be counted a success.

The thing is, Genevieve also has a daughter. Her daughter also has a lump in her breast, has also been living under the same fear as the rest of the women in her family. When she came to visit her mama, Genevieve sent a translator to ask me if her daughter could also have surgery. My heart sank, and I replied with what has become our rote answer. Je suis désolé. There are no more doctors. Their faces fell, and they shrank back into their corner, defeated yet again.

But you see, unlike so many tragedies I have to share with you here, that wasn't actually the end of this story. We told Dr. Bruce about Genevieve's daughter, and he agreed to meet with her and assess the extent of her disease between his surgeries the next day. She had tears in her eyes when I handed her the little card that would give her admission to the ship the next morning, and Genevieve paused in her rope-weaving to flash me an enormous smile.

When I came to work the following evening there were a million other things to claim my attention, and it wasn't until visiting hours rolled around and Genevieve's daughter showed up in her now-familiar orange-printed dress that I remembered the appointment. Dr. Bruce was also in the room, so I shot him a questioning look. His smile told me the end to the story. It's just a cyst. She's not sick. Genevieve, already in happy possession of the news, beamed at me from her corner as her daughter hugged me and we danced across the floor of the ward together. Merci, she called to me from her corner, and then, summoning up all the English that she knew, Thank you. Thank you too much.

Because some days are way too long, and we tell far too many people to go home, to take their carefully nurtured hopes and throw them out with the trash. And other days are a celebration, a joyful dance across a ward with two women who have been saved from the curse of death and disease. I love the dancing days.