Today my 17-year-old daughter and I went to meet with the surgeon. There is a location in Katy, so it is very convenient. The biggest impression that I got (turns out we both felt it) was when we stepped from the stairwell into the waiting area of the cancer center. We were not prepared. You know how a stairwell usually opens up into a hallway? Well, this one didn’t. It opened directly into the waiting area, which was full of cancer patients. And it felt like nothing that I have ever experienced in my life.
I’ve been to funerals. They feel like grief, full grief, living grief.
I’ve been to hospitals. They feel like beehives with pockets of all kinds of emotions with a pervading antiseptic quality.
I stood by my grandmother’s bedside holding her hand when she took her last few breaths and passed from this world to the next. It felt beautiful and spiritual; to witness a soul on a sacred journey.
I have been at accident sites. They feel like pain and suffering.
What all of these environments have in common, to me, is that human emotion is present, it is part of life and of living.
Walking into that waiting area was like hitting a wall. A wall of … not quite death … but the low energy state of the desperation of barely holding on to a facsimile of life. Stepping into that room was like stepping into a swamp where the environment is more toxic than it is supportive. Where you can smell the decay as it seeps into your skin. Stepping into the waiting room was toxic for the spirit. I wanted to leave that place and never return!
As my gaze ran over the patients, my heart broke and filled with love and compassion. I sat down with great conflict. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to leave, but I also didn’t want to leave all of those people there.
The patients all wore hospital bracelets. I approached the check-in window, completed my check in just to have a similar bracelet held up to me. I just looked at the receptionist. She said, “We have to put this on your wrist.” I recoiled physically, emotionally, and I think, spiritually. My emotion was so strong that my filter was overridden as I said eyes wide with horror, “No. I can’t wear that. It’s too much like a hospital and I’m not sick. It feels terrible.” Apparently that was a new response. She had to check and see what she could do. My daughter and I took a seat. A few minutes later I was approached with the armband and asked to just keep it with me. My daughter told me that I was a pain in the ass. I told her, don’t be afraid to go against the grain if it is something that you feel strongly about.
Surveying the room again I saw patients that ranged in appearance from somewhat healthy to not at all healthy. One woman was in a wheelchair. One of her legs had been amputated, she wore a wig, and her skin was pale and parched. There were no smiles. There was no laughter. Except for a little muted conversation from one woman on her cell phone, who I assumed wasn’t a patient because she wasn’t wearing an armband, the room was very quiet. The office staff and the nurses tried to be positive and upbeat. They tried to smile. But when I looked into their eyes, I saw emptiness and sadness.
I only had one appointment with a surgeon, to my knowledge. But it turned out a second appointment had been scheduled for me with the oncologist. Funny about that, I clearly told the woman that I had spoken to that I was not interested in chemotherapy. Obviously she didn’t hear me.
I met with the surgeon. She was stiff, serious and convinced by her treatment and recommendations. Or she was just playing a role. If she had openness and possibility in her person, she hid it well. The doctor and I had our discussion, but we could not find common ground between her education and experience and my self-taught education and self-practiced experience. The only thing that we agreed on was that there is value in collecting data to do a risk/benefit analysis. But she was unwilling or unable to assist me in collecting any data that was outside the normal MD Anderson treatment protocol. Oh … the normal treatment protocol? It was chemo to shrink the tumor, then surgery and radiation, and a year’s worth of chemo to follow. Yeah, obviously she didn’t get the memo either that I won’t do chemo.
The oncologist and I were better able to talk. His brother, being a naturopath, gave him perspective into the realm of natural healing that I like to live in. However, his knowledge was limited to his experience treating my type of cancer. He had experience that showed targeted chemo was successful 80% of the time to shrink the tumor … or so he said. He didn’t want me to delay treatment due to the chances of metastasis. I understood his point, or at least I understood that his opinion was generated from a position of fear, not knowledge of my unique situation. I even told him that he was operating from a position of fear, and he agreed.
I will not operate from a position of fear.
I will stay in a space of love for my body. I will stay in a space of hearing what my body has to tell me about what is going on. I will stay in a space of going where God and the Angels lead me.
I recall feeling the low energy state of that waiting room and I felt huge amounts of empathy toward the victims of, not cancer, but of the systems of fear and absolutes that drive people to feel limited in the actions they can take. I was saddened that many of those burdened by their various cancer diagnoses, either don’t know they can find other alternatives for treatment or just believe that what powerful institutions tell them are their only options. I have to wonder if the systems of greed motivated purely by personal gain (and not necessarily of the doctors) are at the heart of the expensive and dangerous therapies being outlined as the ONLY way forward. I sincerely hope there is an element of care in there somewhere.
[Interesting note: My son took a high school health class. One of the test or quiz questions was something about chemotherapy and radiation being the only cures for cancer. The brainwashing begins early.]
If I ever were to choose any particular route as dictated by someone else, it would have to be where I see people thriving, not slipping into a physical, emotional, and spiritual quagmire of decay.
*Is there a font that denotes sarcasm? Well, I just decided that orange text and “Covered By Your Grace” will be my sarcastic font.