You couldn’t tell by looking at us, five women sitting calmly in the waiting room, scanning our phones and seeing nothing. You couldn’t tell that we are afraid, but no matter how ordinary, no matter how routine, we know that any medical procedure can change a life. Maybe my life.
I’ve survived my annual mammogram and now I’m here for a bone density test. My body is wearing out, I already know that. I don’t need any more warnings, just some encouragement to live out my days.
The technician calls my name but does not tell me hers. She assumes she’s as invisible to me as I am to her, but she’s wrong. In this moment, she has enormous power—not to determine my diagnosis, but to affirm my humanity.
I can’t explain this at the time, of course, because I am just trying to position my old bones on the cold metal table. But then she says, “I love your pants.” I am stunned. My pants are a simple patchwork of striped cotton, wrinkled and well-worn.
“Thank you,” I say and we chat for a few minutes about clothes, about something that isn’t medical or threatening. “They look comfortable,” she says and I say they are. Savoring that word, “comfort.” The power she has to offer it.
