Week 2 — Piece of Cake…
All things considered, week 2 was easier than week 1. My symptoms this week were seemingly less intrusive than last week. The difficult thing about this week was that on two different days, I saw kids coming in for radiation treatments. One of the kids that came in had a Nasopharyngeal Nose Tube. She skipped in, with her backpack on her shoulders and her parents in tow, seemingly unaware of the fact that she had cancer. Another child came in with both a nose tube as well as what looked like some kind of tubing under the skin of her skull. She was carried in by her parents, but she enjoyed watching the fish and turtles in the aquarium that is housed in the waiting room. The final child was wheeled in on a gurney and taken to a special waiting area separate from the one I was sitting in (I did catch a glimpse as I walked back for my treatment).
I have spent quite a bit of time watching the people in the cancer institute over the past couple of weeks. I am sad when I see adults who are there with me. People either around my age or older. I look at these people, these fighters, and think about the lives they have led; their partners, their children, their parents, their families. I hope that many (if not most cases) have led productive, full, and happy lives. They have stories to tell and to be told about them. A lifetime of stories.
But as sad I am for the adults, I am (at least) twice again as upset when I see the children with cancer. Seeing the children this week reminded me of how unfair life can be at times. Ideally, children should not be in hospitals with tubes in them. They should not have to worry about dealing with the effects of chemo and radiation. Their parents shouldn’t have to worry if their child will live to see their 5th, 10th, 15th birthday. My mother once told me to remove the word “should” from my vocabulary (because it is a value judgment), but dammit, life should be fair (at least for children).
I once gave a sermon at my church in which I tried to answer the question why bad things happen to good people. I may blog about that at some point, but just as Rabbi Harold Kushner argues in his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People
Last weekend, I saw a sign in my neighborhood hawking, “Free Lemonade!” As I have said, I am glutton for garage sales, so I followed the sign in hopes of finding deals. What I found was so much more. The kids at this house were hosting an “Alex’s Lemonade Stand.” This is a nationwide fund raising effort based on the example set by Alexandra “Alex” Scott, who setup a lemonade stand to raise money to help her doctors find a cure for childhood cancer. The mother of these enterprising young people told me that last year they raised over $400 (I remember giving last year, too). This year, given my circumstances, I pulled out $25 (the sum of money in my wallet) and gave it to them. I hope that if you happen to see a sign for Free Lemonade, you might consider doing the same.
Merle