You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
accompanying mom on her chemo therapy appointment in Seattle.
We walk through the airy, art filled lobby and ring for the elevator. The waiting area to go up is like most hospitals. Sick people being assisted by not so sick people.
The elevator door opens. It’s an elevator big enough for an emergency room gurney.
“The snack bar is on the third floor,” mom says. “I’m hungry.”
That by itself is a miracle. People up to their eye balls in chemo aren’t usually hungry. They are often everything but hungry.
But mom isn’t most people on chemo. She was reportedly circling life’s drain, stage 4 breast cancer. Then an angel and a miracle and the cancer shrinkage. All in a matter of weeks. From the outside looking in, it’s amazing how fast it all has happened. But really, when you think about it, if you are witnessing a miracle, they often happen fast, in the blink of an angel’s wing.
We get to the third-floor and again the majesty of the facility fills my senses.
We walk to the cafeteria and the light from the Seattle skyline filters into our space.
The airiness and spectacular view warm my heart. I can only imagine it brings hope to those whose hope is fleeing.
A tomato juice and a fruit cup will suffice for now.
We get back on the elevator and ride it to the chemo ward on the 5th floor.
This floor is a rough reminder that cancer is a brutal enemy that will strike without warning. It is malevolent force that has no conscience or feeling.
I see a woman I recognize from downstairs. She is wearing a mask and a bandana on her bald skull. She has a blanket and is slumped in the chair being caressed, almost rocked by a woman who might be a sister. I am struck by the dire aura that hovers around her. She is very very sick and I can only imagine she is in her final fight with the demon.
But I am also struck by the wonder that is no more than 3 feet beyond her gaze. It’s a wonder that I’m not sure she realizes is there. She is seated by a 12 foot high pane of glass. There is no wall, just a clear vista that affords one the view of life. I see a mountain and a lake and blue skies and tall redwood trees. The scene is enriching and encompassing and fills my life gas tank.
I want the woman with the mask and bandana to open her eyes, to lift her head to let the vista fill her vision and thoughts with renewed promise.
I watch for a moment. I hope she will see what I see. The moment passes. Her head hangs, her blanket pulled up to a chin hidden by a surgical mask.
We walk to our chemo suite behind the double doors.
The hallway is narrow and hospital like. There are no windows here. The hallway is serious and medical.
Each suite off the hallway is open, perhaps 8 x 8. There are two chairs in each suite, a pole to hang medicine and a variety of medical instruments on the wall.
There are no doors, only thick curtains, supported by heavy chains in the ceiling.
Mom takes her seat in the big comfy leather chair beside the medicine pole.
There are hushed whispers as every private conversation is audible in suites on either side of us.
As mom settles in, I hear a man answering questions posed by his nurse.
“Yes, I feel nauseated,” he says, his voice booming through the curtain next to my head.
“I feel on edge with that medication,” he adds.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” she says, “But the numbers are a bit high.”
There is a pause in the conversation.
I decide this is way to personal and try and get sportscenter on the TV hanging from the ceiling.
As I watch a silent soccer match, I think that each patients story is different but this hospital has a constant theme.
Cancer is evil. Cancer can be beaten. Hope is important.
In addition to the whisper of medical secrets beyond the curtains, there is a constant hum of machines. The chemo drip devices all sound like printers slowly rolling across a page of paper. It is quiet, but constant.
It is soothing in its rhythmic whirring kind of way. But it’s also a reminder that powerful unpronounceable cancer medicine is being pushed into the arms of heroic patients fighting the ultimate fight.
While life and death is being waged in suite 46. CNN is airing a breaking news graphic.
Benjamin Netanyahu is addressing Washington Law Makers about Iran and its nuclear weapons program. Like the glassy windows in the lobby, this also serves as a reminder that the Earth keeps spinning and the singular battle with life is an infinitesimally small puzzle piece in the global story
I look back at suite 46. My mom is relaxed, an iv in her arm. There are a bevy of nurses assisting her.
I see she is relaxed and confident. Weeks ago she was one of the whispering voices, needing strength to believe, needing prayer to continue the fight.
Those prayers have been answered.
I see the life in her face and the light in her eyes.
She is tired of sitting next to this humming machine that is infusing her with chemo.
She is hungry and keeps telling me that it is time to go to the warf and eat sea food.
That is the spirit that shines through the big windows of this hospital.
It fills her with life and hunger to move and eat and live.
For that I am prayerful, grateful.
As the nurses disconnect my mom from the medicine, I look out the window behind her. We are on the opposite side of the building from the lake. I see a highway ramp surrounded by tall green pine trees. The scene is different, but still full of possibilities.
As we leave the suite filled with used tubing and latex gloves, I breathe in the stench of Clorox.
Somewhere germs are being washed away.
I walk down the hallways of curtains and medical whispers.
I am anxious to breathe in Seattle and sunshine and the smell of an ocean breeze full of life.
Life’s Crazy™