The "Special" Voice

Today I spoke with a woman at the genetic testing lab. They had called me yesterday, but we didn't complete our game of phone tag until this morning.

When she first answered the phone, she was very practical and matter of fact. Thanks for getting back to me, let me pull up your case, what's your DOB, can I put you on hold for a minute.

When she came back on, she had that "special" voice. The one that seems part compassion, part fear. And I couldn't figure out why. I mean, she must spend all day talking to breast cancer patients, and I knew she wasn't going to tell me anything because (based on the convoluted rules of the Boobeaucracy) any results have to come through the geneticist at Dana-Farber. So why the funereal tones, as if she was about to impart dreadful news?

Then she told me what the costs were going to be for the out-of-pocket expenses of the tests, and I realized what was going on. She has to deal all day, poor thing, with people who don't understand why the tests cost so much, or who do understand and are mad at her employer for patenting a sequence on the human genome. Or who don't understand why it's important to have the tests at all, who only agreed to it on the say-so of their doctors, and who refuse to pay for it.

Hence the please-I-really-don't-control-this-stuff-please-don't-yell-at-me voice combined with the oh-god-I-can't-be-rude-to-this-poor-woman-she-has-breast-cancer voice.

So I was brisk and polite and gave my permission to bill us. Thanks to Bravest, cost is no object.

I didn't like the way she nearly whispered, "Thank you, and you have a great Fourth of July," as if such a thing were impossible, but other than that, no harm, no foul. And I'm sorry she has such a dreadful job.

This 4th, I may even eat TWO lobstahs.