Probably is a Fragile Word

Recently, my life has consisted on getting blood tests and ultrasounds.

I’ve just noticed small changes in my body that made me pause and decide to check in instead of brush them off. And that decision — simple as it sounds — has meant sitting in more medical waiting rooms.

There’s something about a waiting room that makes everything feel louder.

The lights are bright. The chairs are slightly uncomfortable. The air smells faintly of disinfectant and paper gowns. The news or a daytime talk show plays on the tv while captions scroll across the screen, and every few minutes a door opens and a name is called.

I sit there, aimlessly scrolling on my phone for a good minute, but I’m not really scrolling.

I’m listening.

Listening for my name. Listening to the tone in the nurse’s voice, and listening to my own heartbeat thud a little harder than usual.

I feel like medical spaces have a way of shrinking time and stretching it all at once. Five minutes can feel like twenty. You can re-read the same text messages three times. You can glance at the door every time it opens, even when you know you won’t be next.

I didn’t expect how vulnerable this would feel. Because I’ve gotten blood tests and ultrasounds before, but I don’t know, the ones I’ve been getting lately have just felt different. On paper, doing these tests is responsible. It’s proactive. It’s what we’re supposed to do when something feels off. “Just ruling things out.”

But sitting in that chair, waiting to be called for your blood test, or lie still while someone uses a transducer to look inside your body, you feel just how little control you really have.

You can eat well. Exercise. Hydrate. Take your vitamins. Try to manage stress. And still, there are parts of you operating in ways you can’t see and don’t fully understand.

That’s the nerve-wracking part.

It’s not always the fear of bad news. Sometimes it’s just the unknown. The waiting. The awareness that your body is both entirely yours and somehow its own separate mystery.

And I think what starts to happen, and what I’ve noticed that I start doing is, I try to reassure myself that everything’s okay.

It’s probably nothing.

It’s probably hormones.

It’s probably stress.

It’s probably fine.

Probably is such a fragile word.

And yet, there’s something strangely comforting about looking around that waiting room. Everyone sitting there is carrying something. The older man flipping through a magazine. The woman reading a book. The teenager with one AirPod in scrolling through TikTok. We’re all pretending to be casual, but we’re here because we care. Because something matters.

Because we want to be okay.

When they finally call your name, there’s that little jolt in your chest. You stand up, smooth your shirt, take a breath, and walk toward a room that has something that hopefully is going to give you answers.

I feel as though waiting rooms are a very human space. It’s the in-between — where you’ve done the brave thing by showing up, but you don’t have certainty yet.

And I’m realising that’s what a lot of adulthood is. We don’t always know, but we’re doing our best and we keep it moving.

Lately, I’ve been doing the responsible thing. I’m feeling the fear anyway. I’m sitting in the uncomfortable chair, and most importantly, I’m choosing to care for myself even when it makes me nervous.