In the Recovery Room

I spent the day yesterday in the recovery room of one of the greatest cancer research facilities on the planet, here on the east side of New York City, where I live. I was there not for surgery, nor research purposes, but for a friend who was undergoing a lumpectomy for ductile carcinoma, a non-invasive incidence of breast cancer.

The day started at 7 a.m. When my friend called me just to touch base as she got into the hospital. Her surgery was scheduled for 10:30. She was calling me to give me a telephone number to call and check on her, and, likely, to hear a friendly voice. A strong lady, a fireball really, this procedure was of no small worry to her, I believe. We talked and she hung up. She called me a few minutes later and said plans were moved an hour or two later and I shouldn't come to the hospital under the early afternoon.

This was one of the incredible fall days that blesses New Yorkers – bluebird sky, warm sun, cool temperatures – a treat before the haggard gray chill of winter sets in. I walked to the cancer facility and sat in the sun-drenched benches at the front of the building to check in with the nurses and to see how my friend was doing. Amazing, in front of a cancer facility, smokers puffing away.

I got a call saying my friend was out of surgery and would be ready in an hour. Whew, I breathed and looked up into that blue sky and sunlight. Thank you.

I took the elevator up to the recovery room, signed in, and walked through the doors and saw more than a dozen gurneys separated by curtains with patients in crimson robes and attendants in surgical greens and whites. Patients would lie in their gurneys, then get up, move around, and then move to a chair. There were all kinds of people there, young, old, men and women. It was almost factory-like, but the nurses were kind and caring.

While hooked up to a machine that read her blood pressure automatically –120/79 -- my friend took a look at her left breast. They did it on the wrong one, she said. Then laughed. I guess that was her way of letting me – us – know she was okay.

Is there a 5-star restaurant around here, she asked? I'm starving. A nurse came by and asked her to rate her pain. A 3, down from a 5 after the surgery. They sent me to the chairs, the waiting area where the recovery process accelerates. Next to me, in the next cubicle a woman sat with her friend. They had come up from DC for surgery, taken the Vamoose bus they called it, an economical ride from DC with videos. The friend gave her chum, just out of surgery, a pillow made of lavender buds. I could smell the aroma lightly from five feet away. I heard them talking implants with a surgeon.

My friend came out and sat. No 5-star restaurant here, she sniffed. She settled for a snack of graham crackers, orange juice, and coffee in the recovery room. A nurse came by and gave her a big amber bottle of pain medication. Then the doctor came in. She said she used the same incision to cut out two areas, taking a good margin. My friend was ready to go, and thanked the doctor. I took notes to make sure everything would be remembered. I shook the doctor's hand. I love shaking hands with a surgeon – so, so soft.

We left and took a bus uptown to my friend's apartment. We had an engagement in the evening, an academic investiture for another friend of ours, a fancy robing ceremony with speeches and even a prominent politician there. We drove an hour from New York out into the suburbs, where my friend took pictures of the ceremony, then dived into amazing treats at a reception afterwards – lamb chops, fruit, cheeses, smoked meats.

I couldn't believe this lady had undergone surgery earlier in the day, and then was still plugging away. After all that protein, when we were done, we had a sweet tooth satisfied with a cup of coffee and a whole-wheat donut at a donut shop nearby.

She told me she found inspiration in the story she read in a newspaper about a Broadway star, Maria Friedman, who discovered a lump in her breast while the play "The Women in White" was in preview, had surgery, and is scheduled to appear in the opening Thursday, according to news reports.

I took inspiration from her. And, from all the other patients in that recovery area.

Breast cancer is probably one of the first areas that will benefit from the molecular biology tools now being brought to bear in medicine. Already the drug Herceptin is making an impact.

On 60 Minutes Sunday on CBS, the news magazine covered the idea that maybe people who have fatal diseases should have more access to unproven drugs.

And, in Sioux City, Iowa, a women's church group makes pillows for women who have had breast cancer surgery.

According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, excluding skin cancers, accounting for 1 in 3 cancers diagnosed. In 2005, an estimated 211,240 cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed among women, with 40,410 expected to die, according to ACS figures. Normal news practices are to round off those figures, but I just can not do that. Each number is a person and each is significant.

My friend got through this day, and I'm thankful.