ABSTRACT
“I should have just bought the flowers for myself,” Ann Benton said under her breath, repeating words from the movie, The Hours. While Ann was waiting for her lab results, she could hear that obnoxious show Montel playing on a television in the dark, windowless waiting room. Montel was talking to young women about their torrid relational traumas. As Ann stared blankly at the television, she shifted her thoughts back to the meaning of her life. She had just seen the blockbuster movie, The Hours and thus, was inspired to read Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. She began making a list of all the things she wanted to do, from reading more of the classics, to learning to speak Spanish, to spending more time with true friends, to just taking care of herself. As she looked around at the other people in the waiting room, she heard whispers of other patients talking about adjuvant therapy, Whipple procedure, and ECRP. What she heard sounded like a new language, but not a beautiful romance language that she had once studied. After waiting for nearly 2 hours, she is called to the sterile examination room.
