Five emotions that come with being in the waiting room . . . again

"They're not enough

These empty words that try

to cheer me up

I wanna fake a smile, but

I'm not that tough

You're all I got

I'm choking back tears and

trying not to fall apart

Letting time tick away

is the hardest part

It's so hard

Here I am once again

In the waiting room

hoping to hear good news

Hoping to hear good news" (2x)

~ Andrew Ripp, "Waiting Room" 🎶

This song so accurately describes how I've felt the past few weeks since confirming a consultation with a new concussion specialist.

Such deep emotions are stirring within me and I don't know what to do with them all.

I want to be rational and truthful with myself.

I want to hope for the best and dream of the possibilities my future could hold if I get better this time.

But I also want to be careful not to become so fixated on an unlikely outcome that it leaves me disappointed if it doesn't work.

Ever since booking the appointment for later this month, I seem to burst into tears at almost every mention of it. I cry because I feel so many conflicting emotions deep within me. I cry because I can't seem to articulate them all.

Tears are streaming down my cheeks and clouding my vision as I write this post. My heart aches.

Maybe you've been here before and can relate.

Maybe you find yourself here now.

---

First of all, when it comes to what I feel as I anticipate this visit, I must say that I feel hopeful. I am convinced God can and loves to glorify Himself in doing the impossible. I wonder, with childlike faith, if He'll use this new doctor over 6hrs away to administer the cure I've been waiting for for 13 years.

But that sense of hope is quickly brought into check as a flood of emotions surface being here "in the waiting room" . . . again.

I also feel a twinge of fear as my heart remembers how cruelly and carelessly doctors have spoken to me and prescribed "solutions" that significantly worsened or exponentially prolonged my condition.

I feel deep sadness as my heart can't help but recall the all disappointments it's suffered over the past 13 years as renowned specialists threw up their hands in defeat.

I feel exhausted as I consider the physical, mental, and emotional investment this trip requires of me and remember how previous first visits often left me feeling depleted.

Depleted

of my time,

my energy,

my hopes,

and my savings.

If I'm honest, I even feel a hint anger arising within me as my body remembers all the ways I've been lied to and miserably mistreated by the medical community. I remember the "mandatory" (and essentially impossible) hoops I had to jump through even before seeing the specialist.

Just getting to the waiting room of a concussion specialist meant enduring lengthy phone calls with piercing hold tones that exacerbated the pain. It meant driving to a new clinic although turning my head side to side intensified my symptoms.

Then, things only worsened once inside the waiting room.

Regardless of the clinic, it was almost always the same.

While concussed, with my nervous system in an extremely heightened state, waiting rooms would my brain with tormenting and inescapable stimuli such blinding fluorescent lights, blaring TVs, high-pitched beeping, other patients scrolling through ads on their phones.

The stimuli aggravated my pain and mocked me in my already-desperate state. It felt like every fiber in my brain was screaming - begging me - to duck and hide, to escape and find refuge in a dark, quiet place.

If that wasn't enough, I was given no choice but to stay immersed in it so I could read and complete seemingly endless stacks of paperwork amidst ever-increasing pain. (Yes, this paperwork was necessary for the very specialists who knew I was there because I struggled to read and write and because I had requested their help in restoring this loss of function.)

But none of this could change their expectations for how patients were supposed to behave in the waiting room. Absolutely no exceptions were made.

If I asked for the TV to be turned off or muted, I was told it "had" to be at that volume or that there was "no way to turn it off."

If I said I couldn't fill out the paperwork and offered to dictate my answers to the person at the front desk, the request was always outright declined.

When I told them I needed to wait outside where it was dimmer and quieter, I risked being charged for a missed appointment if I wasn't in the room when my name was called.

They were entirely unwilling to entertain any ideas I proposed and certainly weren't about to be inconvenienced by my humble requests.

Then, after what often felt like an overstimulating eternity, my time in the waiting room would finally be over. My name would be called and I would be one step closer to getting the answers and help I so desperately needed.

Or so I thought.

Only, it didn't usually play out that way.

Weeks of enduring excruciating pain, grueling limitations, and counting down the days to this very visit were abruptly halted in a matter of moments.

Once again, after hoping against all odds, yet another doctor would be disinterested in listening to the complexities of my case and refuse to explore possible remedies.

It would have been better if their answers only sent me "back to the drawing board" (i.e. still needing answers). The reality was that most of these visits were so painfully overstimulating that it usually took my brain over a week to settle back down to the heightened state I was in before seeing them.

Will this time be different?

Will this season "in the waiting room" yield good news?

Oh I sure hope so.

Maybe you also feel like the medical community has utterly exhausted you with the run-around of phone calls, paperwork, and seemingly useless visits.

Maybe you feel like your time, energy, hope, and savings have been spent.

Maybe you, too, are hesitant to dream of what it looks like to be well again but can't restrain yourself from "hoping to hear good news."

I wish I had profound wisdom or insight to share with you today but all I can say is that I know the One who sympathizes with our pain (see Hebrews 4) and that He is with us in our waiting rooms. Amidst all the letdowns and hurts, I've experienced His grace being truly sufficient and am confident it will carry us even now.

If you desire prayer as you sit in your own waiting room, please reach out and I would love to join you in faith. You can reach me at esther.countenance@gmail.com.

Would you like to pray for me? I would humbly accept you covering this upcoming consultation in prayer.

Here are some specific prayer requests that I shared in my newsletter subscribers last month. I believe God hears us and is eager to move.