The Cancer Center Chronicles - A Cancer Sucks Journey

Here We Are

September 2021

Our journey begins with a trip to emergency room and a couple of blood transfusions. Very scary stuff. Little did we know this was only the beginning.

We met with a surgeon who gave us literally no hope at all. So we went to our primary care nurse practitioner who suggested the cancer center. Thank God for her! 

October 2021

Numerous specialists and tests

Met with an Oncologist and specialized surgical Oncologist in one day. We have hope! (If you read this or know someone that needs to read this, I strongly suggest second opinions.)

A port is placed in his chest through outpatient surgery

He's scared and I'm scared but I don't want to show how scared I am. It's my turn to be as strong as I can be, or at least to try to outwardly show that. We have kids and even though they are adults, we want them to know what's going on to give them hope. So I need to show strength. Generally I am a strong person, but this has shaken me as it should. Yes I believe the Oncologist and I know what he said, but there's always that part of the what if's in the back of your head.

November 2021

Treatment starts. He's not doing to bad with side effects. Good. They are 5 hours long. I sit in the hallway alone due to Covid. I bring a book. 

There are so many people. Cancer sucks! So many people who look so ill. Some too fragile to walk so are pushed in wheelchairs to their treatments. 

A young man talks to another of how the holidays are terrible because everyone dies at the holidays. He talks about his grandmother. Abut the anniversary of when he buried his friend. He can't get out of his depression. It is palpable. I can feel his pain. He's scared. We're all scared. 

As we pull up and I see the familiar shape of the building, I feel my heart sink. It's the all too familiar feeling of hate, and yet of love. You see I hate this place because it represents the fact that there is something inside my husband, and yet inside these walls, once you get inside and you sit there and get past your own feelings, you see love. You see husbands, wives, children, friends, grandchildren who have brought in a loved one for treatment. And in this place of hope and sadness, I see caring nurses, doctors, receptionists and others who work here whom I don't know their positions who recognize that this journey is hard.

I sit and wait and hear drifting conversations of care and though my heart is heavy, I can still feel a little of their warmth make its way to my corner as I wait for my husband's treatment to end today, and it is welcome.

It's packed today. So many people with cancer. An Asian woman searching the lobby approaches the receptionists timidly and quietly asking her where to go to get a breast exam. She is told it's downstairs. The woman tells her she has no insurance. She's reassured that she just needs to tell the people downstairs and it will be okay. You see, a great portion of the downstairs of this cancer center is dedicated to women's cancer treatment. Years ago I brought my husband's grandmother here to this same center. She received such great care. They gave her choices even at her (90+)age. We got to spend a couple more years with her because of this center. But I digress, many people here at the center are recognized and known automatically by their names. This can be a comfort to them. It also probably means they have been coming for awhile. Cancer treatment has come a long way from when my dad had it in the 1970's. I wonder if when they had this kind of treatment back then if I would have had to grow up without him?

Today someone was taken out by ambulance. I wish I could say this is the first time I've seen this. It isn't. It won't be the last. But, it doesn't mean it's necessarily a terrible thing. You never know.