The Building Filled With Emotions

My experiences with hospitals before 2023 were mostly positive. I had a very unpleasant six months with gallstones and gallbladder removal in 2016, but in the end - the hospital solved my problems. Most of my stays have involved giving birth and I got to leave with the reward of a healthy newborn each time. I don't feel creeped out in medical environments, it doesn't conjure negative feelings. 

But Roswell Cancer Center is a different place. 

The emotions are palpable. Every person here is either hearing the worst news or best news or waiting for results or visiting someone they love deeply. Anger, fear, elation, anxiety, disbelief, weariness, uncertainty, devotion, hope, restlessness, frustration and curiosity. I know I've felt them all. 

In the first dark weeks of finding out I had cancer, not understanding the pathology results and not knowing yet if it was in different parts of my body - I felt a lot of self pity. But once you're checking into the chemotherapy reception and it's apparent that so many other people are going through the same treatment - self pity turns into solidarity. This is just something that happens. Sometimes I saw couples that were both wearing patient wristbands and I found something to be grateful for. 

Where there is a lot of uncertainty, there's also a lot of love. My heart breaks for every couple holding hands as they walk into the hospital. We saw the sweetest duo of a grandfather and his granddaughter on the chemo floor. You can see the fear, but also the determination to at least TRY and beat these rapidly multiplying cells in the body. 

The kindness of the staff - the radiologist revealing the results of a scan, the oncologist listening to side effects, the nurse asking if I'm ok as my stress tears come out and I'm sniffling during the MRI. The nurse who listened to my complaint about Benadryl making my legs restless and she took the time to administer it slowly. The overnight nursing assistant who brought me blankets. The thousands of interactions going on at any given moment. 

If you believe that energy hangs in the air, or inhabits a space - especially when it's intense; then you have probably felt this in places like hospitals, churches or even schools. For my own intense feelings that I brought into the building, multiply that by a few hundred. 

I said a meta prayer in every waiting room, for all of the friends and family who traveled together to face the beast . This stressful, unrelenting beast. 

Chemo #8 - The One Where I Ring A Bell

Chemotherapy put our lives on pause. It was hard to think about what would happen afterwards, in the middle and each day - although the last four treatments of Taxol were far less abusive to my body. 

Every time we stepped into the hospital on chemo day and they'd take my blood sample to make sure I was healthy enough for treatment - I'd pray that we could just stay on schedule. Anything difficult is easier to endure when you have an end date. 

I don't know when the tradition to ring the bell at the end of treatment began, but I was unsure whether I wanted to do it or not. The bell at Roswell is in the main lobby, off in the corner. We'd never heard or seen anyone use it and it almost looked like a prop instead of something to really use. 

But, I rang that bell. In the lobby, it echoes up the four levels into the atrium. It's loud and clear. My in-laws were there and brought our kids - a moment for all of us to celebrate the end of this weird, weird time. I had been tearing up all day thinking about how victorious it was going to feel. I was holding it together until everyone in the lobby clapped and cheered for me - who knows how many of those people had gone through the same experience. I think they should also add a neon sign that blinks "F#$K CANCER!"