The Stress Test

I sit here in the glass-encased waiting room of the Massachusetts General Hospital's newfangled "Stress Lab." It is decorated in soft sand tones and vast open stretches of windows, allowing as much natural light in to brighten even this dismal morning. The last effects of this May's second nor'easter have cast a gray hue across the city, but the rain has crispened the redbrick of the buildings making me long for my camera to freeze the moment, allowing you to see the world as I do.

How oddly beautiful this strange contrast of gray and wet crispness makes my city. Even the golden dome of the state house takes on a shining glow, set off by clouds descending from above and a white plume of steam dancing across the tops of the brick buildings in the foreground to greet it with a kiss.

I want to dance across those rooftops too. As if they were my own stage setting from a classic 40's musical--an urban Fiddler on the Roof or Chimney sweep scene from Mary Poppins. Mom has been ensconced behind the protective doors to my left for about 90 minutes. That's about half way through the process and I wait; the dutiful daughter, quietly observing the host of faces passing in and out.

Sure I could have dashed off to the coffee shop five floors below as soon as she disappeared beyond the doors, not to emerge for 3 hours. But, unlike most of the 'supportive' family, I just couldn't. They have come here as 'rides' or pre/post-testing support for the test subjects, who all appear calm and at ease. I mean its just a stress test right. We have seen them on TV, the patient walking a treadmill with electrodes strapped to key places; how simple. What you don't see is more important and it's what my mom remembers. You don't see the informed consent sheet with the myriad of complications and ailments that "may be brought on by the implementation of this testing." These are enough to scare anyone--seizures, heart attacks, strokes--lets just complete the big 10 of sudden, deadly ailments why don't we. You don't see the liquid IV that is sometime administered to help assess your condition, which feels like raw fire being pumped into your veins. But, most of all you don't see the fear and panic built up in the eyes of one who has a history of heart problems, stroke and diabetes and remembers all to well how horrible the previous stress testing had been. You don't see that her dread is so vivid that it has kept her awake for the past 4 nights heightening her stress levels.

No, by the time I got her there, she was not the strong, fiercely independent woman I have know for most of my life. What I saw pass through those doors was a frightened child; frail and fragile, holding onto the fact that I would be only fifteen feet away during the course of this treatment. I could no sooner leave than I could cut her heart out.

So I sit here with my super-sized French vanilla coffee and granola bar that tastes like bark, ignoring the snickers and judgments of those uninformed visitors who think I should be comfortably propped up in a coffee shop booth. They don't know what I do. I endure the screaming two-year-old and her brother who for 15 minutes believe that the chairs behind me are their own jungle gym. Their mother oblivious to any trick to quell their restlessness, but their grandmother was only there for an electrocardiogram and they soon disperse. Ignoring the stares and the 'come-hither' smiles of bored husbands waiting on their wives, who have conveniently forgotten that I just watched the obligatory peck on the cheek and 'luv you's exchanged moments before.

It is quiet here, no cell phones allowed, no TV. Smart support members (mostly older women) that are tethered here, like me, have brought books or stacks of magazines to while away the time and compensate for the meek selection of reading material tucked into a single rack at the labs entrance. These souls, all waiting, hold some curiosity for me and I catch myself staring now and again at certain features or movements, ingraining the details into the circuitry of my brain to be used later. Many different people get melded into one as a character is born in my head.

I sit here waiting and watching. Wondering how my mother suddenly became so frail. Had it really been eight years ago that this regal battleship had a massive fracture breech her hull, ending her career as the dark champion of her workforce underdogs? What was worse is how the hull, once breeched, begins to crumble. The fracture stretching and expanding across the façade of her being. The little limp and shortness of breath that were warning signs have morphed into pronounced handicaps that nearly kept her from her dreams and have scared us all. It was the stroke, a mere warning shot across her bow, that propelled us into action some 2 years ago. Dee and I forced her into retirement and dragged her on an excursion to the British Isles. It was not the pleasure seeking trip that most believed but an attempt by us to insure that mom didn't lose her dream. That trip was meant to be with her father a special father-daughter journey to Ireland--to Galway, but cancer stole him away from her. Now alone in the waters and crippled, we took this once stalwartly lady on her journey, hoping it won't be her last , despite being decommissioned she will go on like Ironsides as an example of survival, of bravery.

Yet we see the age in her now, we see the pain. How many more dreams will die unrealized in her as age and ailment conspire against her? Lost in my thoughts, I don't realize the passing of time until her head, snow white, emerges from behind the door. She is tired and careworn, but doesn't look so bad. I sit tight, holding my breath, waiting for signs of distress, but none come.

"It's all over. We can go now."

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes. I did better. There was no burning pain this time and no IV, but the pressure was almost unbearable...but, I did the whole four minutes." Her eyes brighten then and I can see the pride. She had come through it, survived and it wasn't that bad. I mentally exhale. My mom was back, a little cracked and a little less buoyant, but still sea-worthy.

"Let's go get you something to eat."