The look is medicinal but the feeling is industrial. It's through the door at the end of the hall. Just past the on-site pharmacy that mixes the chemo concoctions right here.Enter and you are in the center of the room. Too huge. Like a warehouse floor or something. To the right nurses and attendants are behind a counter. They look up with one accord to see who walked in. Great. In front of you are three treatment "pods." Each pod is comprised of two rows of identical, institutional recliners, rows of about ten, facing each other with an aisle down the middle. No color. No laughter. Little speech. It's like, mechanized.
This is the first day of chemotherapy. If you have to meet with the doctor or doctor's assistant before your session, pay your $40 co-pay on the way in. In our case, this "office visit" will be scheduled for every Wednesday and Friday. We will be there Monday through Friday like a job. Six hours of chemo (two hours per bag), plus setup time. Three weeks on. One week to rest. Do that twice. Then take radiation for two weeks. Expect second and third degree burns. Then go back for two more cycles (eight weeks) of chemo. Give it twenty weeks total.
Vomiting? Probably not. They put anti-nausea medication in the bag. Did I mention it goes into a "picc line" (a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) that empties directly into the heart? This tube has a double lumen, meaning two places to screw a drip line or syringe right outside the arm. They push two large syringes of saline through first, to clean out the blood. We got the hook-up.
You'll lose your eyebrows. Don't even think about getting a temperature above 100.4 degrees without calling the doctor immediately. No fruit or vegetables that you cannot wash AND peel. You won't want to eat because nothing tastes right, but it is your "job." Put a priority on protein. Keep drinking liquids for the sake of your kidneys. They will give you a separate medicine to protect your bladder. Oh, and if you want to take JuicePlus, forget it. They rely on the oxidizing property of your body for the therapy to work. Save vitamins for after you finish. In the mean time, spoon peanut butter out of the jar.
I wish they had some color in here. I know this place has to be antiseptic for the sake of second-week sufferers at the low spot of their immune system function, but does it have to LOOK so antiseptic?
As you engage a person's gaze there is almost an unspoken acknowledgement. "You, too?" When I walked into the waiting area I saw someone I worked with on some projects last year. Older, but she had just put her mother into a nursing home. Now she was pushing a walker. I don't remember hearing she had cancer. It was like I knew her in a past life. Not now.
Heb 13:3 Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.
As if you were suffering bodily. We need more solidarity in the family. Like Matthew Henry points out, we are all in the body physical, and if we are saved, in the body mystical (the body of Christ). Everyone who lives experiences bodily pain. Use that to help you remember those who are suffering now, even if you are not.
Like my brother minister. I took him to his first chemo today. The doctor said: sarcoma sucks. Yeah. Peter says,
1 Pet 3:8,12,14 Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: ...For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: ...and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;
Amen.
