What Would We Do Without It?
I was back at the cancer center yesterday and once again, it was far too crowded. Too many cancer patients….Too many caregivers.
Some sit, waiting for their treatments with blank stares on their faces. I wonder where they are? Where have their thoughts taken them? Hopefully it’s back to a time when cancer wasn’t a factor. Maybe they see a beautiful mountain range and hear the birds singing or maybe they’re on a beach somewhere with a cool, salty breeze and endless blue skies. Better times and better places, they deserve those day dreams.
The caregivers have looks of worry and fatigue too. You can tell who has been in this fight a long time. The weary eyes, even the smiles have changed.
But still, there they are, in the fight. The fight for life. When the treatment is complete, they take off the hospital gown, change back into street clothes and step back into the new normal. Hopefully, the treatment killed a lot of cancer cells today. Hopefully, any tumor spread was stopped another day.
HOPE-fully….What would we do without it?
July 21, 2011 @ 6:41 pm
The little light of HOPE is a wonderful thing. A friend was telling me today that his daughter-in-law was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At the small regional hospital, the doctor was less than hopeful. They went to a cancer center in Philadelphia where the prognosis was grim but still offered some hope. Multiple rounds of chemo have caused the tumor to shrink on her pancreas as well as the liver. Surgery has helped greatly but they know she is fighting a deadly enemy. Still she fights on. More chemo planned. One of her doctors told her that “if I can get you through a year, I’ll get you through at least 5 years”! Now that’s the kind of doctor I want fighting alongside me!!! I recommended to my friend that he suggest to his son and daughter-in-law to consider Johns Hopkins for another opinion and perhaps some additional options. The current doctor has given them something to latch onto in spite of the odds. HOPE is powerful and often that’s all we have.