Three Minutes

Three minutes is a short and pretty insignificant amount of time. It is probably less than it will take to read this vignette.  

“It will only take three minutes”. I was already concerned. Why are they putting me back in? I had just come out of a PET scanner for the investigation of an abdominal tumour. I was in the best place, possibly in the world. I was in the best hands.  

“Just empty your bladder and we will pop you back in. Nothing to worry about, we just need to check something. It will only take three minutes.” 

They strapped me in and I slid back into the scanner. There really isn't much room but I am not claustrophobic. It is OK. And it is only three minutes anyway. The imaging starts.  

I start counting down the minutes in my head.  

It must be two by now. It is pretty uncomfortable in here but I will be out soon. I wonder what else they wanted to do.  

Okay, three minutes is up. I’ll give it a bit longer. It is difficult to judge time in here. Three minutes, that is very precise isn’t it? Not a few. Not five. He must have meant three exactly. 

It must be three by now. It feels like four or five. I’ll count up to 60, slowly.  

Five minutes. Something must be wrong. What have they found? There must be something bad. That is the only reason.  

Six minutes. They should not have said three. They are looking at the metastases aren’t they?  

Seven minutes. I try cranking my head up to catch someone’s eye. Trying to work out a diagnosis from the way they are standing. Shall I say something? I keep quiet. 

Eight minutes. It must be metastases. What am I going to do? I have a two-year-old. 

Nine minutes. Maybe it is not the end. Chemo must be an option. Just take me out now. 

Ten. The rollers start and I slide out anxiously looking for someone. 

Happily everything turned out well and I do not actually know how long I was in there. There were no metastases and my subsequent surgery was successful.  

I cannot fault the skill and expertise of the people who did the test. They rightly just wanted to double-check something. Telling me the time was just an innocuous comment designed to put me at ease but every word counts. Building up expectations, however small, in people in a fragile state of mind can have consequences that might not be obvious. As a doctor, I felt that I was effective at communicating but I must have said things like this in the past. As a patient, these extra minutes were some of the longest in my life.