The woman sitting next to my brother talked and talked on her cell phone to one person than another I could tell this wasn't her first day of chemotherapy but rather one of many. She talked about her plans for her bathroom, "Do you think tiling the bathroom wall is necessary, maybe we could have a free-standing tub and simply paint the walls… I think pale blue would be pretty… well, yes if we had grandchildren tiles would be practical but being practical is so boring…" Later she chatted with someone else, "… I always wanted to go to Tulum, I heard Cancun was too touristy… oh you think Tulum is too touristy too?… But those white sandy beaches I can see myself walking along those white sandy beaches picking up seashells… No, I do not want to go to Hawaii, I like Mexican food she laughs. I am teasing you. I would be happy to go anywhere and I wish I could say anytime."
The woman's spirit kept shining through during each conversation. Near lunchtime, her husband walked in, "… really peanut butter on a hamburger neither sounds good to me… no, I don't think I could stomach that not even on a good day… But the Teriyaki place around the corner certainly does… yes it is spicy, but it is not peanut butter on hamburger…". She leans over to us as if we have known each other for years, and chirps "If you want some lunch there is a Teriyaki place around the corner it is fast and good. Just thought you might like to know that for the future, the cafeteria is good too, but after a while, you might like a change." She doesn't tell us where the peanut butter on hamburger place is.
She spent her day making plans, dreaming, writing lists with various colored pens, in pretty notebooks. Between bites of her Teriyaki chicken she said, "Honey, we need to go to TJ Maxx… yes I want to go there again… I know we were just there yesterday she laughs… I want to find some new pillows and something pretty for spring. Doesn't it feel like spring is in the air?… No, nothing is wrong with our pillows… Oh, Honey, she winks it simply is something I can change.
Her spirit was contagious. Healing. A light in a dim place leading a way for the newbies to follow.
My brother Marty's chemotherapy dripped into his veins ten hours worth, later he would go home with a forty-eight-hour drip hooked to his port (Hickman line). It was his first day and the mental notes he wrote went something like this, "…What will this be like?… Will I lose my hair? … Am I going to be sick? … Is this feeling I am having normal? How much longer is this going to last?"
The nurse hooked up another IV sack to drip through his port, "This might give off a metallic sugary taste in your mouth." As she said that I flashed back to my own time with cancer. That metallically sugary taste I despised to the point that sweet things do not appeal to me, but vomiting was much worse than that taste. I pitied my brother.
After eating her Teriyaki chicken the woman sitting next to my brother woke her husband up by asking, "Maybe, we should move, do you want to move?… No, I am not talking about walking around the clinic, but moving from our home to a smaller home along the river?… Oh, your funny she giggled, "Of course, I still want new pillows!"
As the day slowly went along, and patients came and went, IV dripped, buzzers went off, the sunset, the woman gathered her pens, notebooks, and positive spirit and went home. We sat alongside my brother watching his new path take shape with stage four pancreatic cancer that has metastasized to his liver the path that I wish wasn't so.
Now my prayers include the woman with her appetite for Teriyaki chicken.
Please pray for my brother Marty.
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