The Dance

In my new job, I get the mail for all the areas of the cancer center. What that means is that I take a rolling cart from our mail room to the post office in the basement of the hospital and then back up to put mail in their respective boxes. I kind of do this dance with my mail cart and the doors. I don’t have someone there to open the doors for me, so I push the doors open with my hips and swing around with the cart, etc. Its kind of fun.

I get to the post office by going down the elevator one floor and then following the underground hallways to the hospital. On my way I pass Radiation and the Nuclear Medicine clinics. As I pass I can see into the waiting rooms for Radiation and Nuclear Medicine. I can also sometimes see into the actual clinic rooms where patients are being treated. My eyes are wide open because I’m curious nursing student, not because I want to be nosy or disrespectful. I usually try to avert my eyes when passing the clinic rooms, but when I get to the NucMed waiting room, I look. Its interesting for me to see just how busy they are, how old everyone is, how the patients look, etc.

Earlier this week I witnessed something incredibly heavy (no big surprise, this being the cancer center). It’s mostly always heavy in the patient areas. Cancer is a monster. Period. Anyways, I was doing my little dance, listening to my iPod and I passed the NucMed clinic. But this time I see a relatively young couple, mid thirties maybe, and they are slouched against each other. The man was awake and had his hand to his head, just looking up blankly and stressed. The woman was asleep, her head resting on her husband’s chest, both looking worse for wear. But her feet are what caught my eyes. Her feet were resting on a stroller that was empty, save a black bag that looked like it carried some sort of medical equipment. The only way for me to interpret this is that their very young child was in receiving treatment. That’s just the reality of the beast. Cancer doesn’t care how old our young you are.