The Ups and Downs of Voice Mail Messages

I cannot begin to count the number of times that I have left someone a phone message and apologized at the end of it for either rambling or for not being very clear – or both. Invariably my messages are longer than I would like them to be, in part because I usually dial the phone having given minimal thought to not reaching the intended party.  I don’t think ahead about how to distill what I want to express into a twitter length summary if I should get voice mail or an answering machine.  I envy those who are able to leave a message that is brief and to the point.   

Now, imagine being a cancer surgeon’s assistant and having to leave some longed for information on a patient’s voice mail. You don’t know anything about the patient’s household and whether the whole household has access to the message, so you try to walk a fine line between being informative without being too revealing. I suspect there are protocols in place if the news is not good. In that case, I imagine you leave a message asking the patient to call the doctor’s office at their earliest convenience.  But if the news is good, you may try to convey that, at least in a concise fashion.

A good while after receiving a voice mail message on Tuesday, indicating that my lymph nodes were free of cancer, it dawned on me that there was something else in the message from my doctor’s assistant that I didn’t quite catch.  I listened to the message several times and, although I thought the additional little snippet might mean something really good, I wasn’t quite sure.  The statement was quick:  “Everything was removed in surgery and your lymph nodes were negative.”  What was everything?  I had had a lump removed and two lymph nodes.  That was everything as far as I knew.  Yet, I wasn’t sure if the message was confirming that or saying something more. 

On Wednesday, I left a message for the assistant, asking for further clarification. I spoke directly with the assistant on Thursday morning.  She was most apologetic about not having been clearer.  She has only been in her job for a month, and I gather that a lot of this is new ground for her.  I don’t envy her having to make these sorts of calls in the first place.  I wouldn’t want to be the one to do it, especially if it involved delivering the bad news.  But in my case, it was indeed more good news.  Not only were the lymph nodes clear, the tumor margins were also clear, meaning they had successfully removed all of the cancer.  So they really did “get everything”!  I just could have used an additional word or two to help me catch that the first go round.

The lesson learned on my end:  I realize that I need to listen to important messages several times, whether concise or rambling, to be sure I catch even the subtlest hint of something that merits my attention.  As for my surgeon’s assistant, I suspect that time, and too many opportunities for practice will make her a pro before long.