What we learn from cancer patients

On the third floor of the Mays Cancer Center, I waited in a sparse room for my injection.

The room was well-lit with floor-to-ceiling windows. Two seats from me, a woman in a floral dress gently closed her eyes. To my right was a man praying for his wife who shared a seat next to him, and a mother with hairs growing back was having a casual conversation with her daughter.

Perhaps I looked as they did — deep in thought and aware of my environment.

At that moment I realized that I wasn’t surrounded by people. They were mothers, sons, spouses, grandparents, neighbors, coworkers, and much more.

It struck me that in all other waiting rooms — from dentist appointments to car dealerships — people were hunched looking at their phones.

In this room, though, everyone was soaking in the moment, letting themselves feel, and spending their time perhaps as it should be used.

I was in better shape than everyone else — only there for an Evusheld injection, but it was two hours spent with sobering thoughts and I left that room with more than a COVID booster.

Like most of you, I start each day relatively the same way — I hit snooze on the alarm clock, begin killing time scrolling through my phone, and grunt getting out of bed wishing I was still asleep. Once the day “officially” starts, I go through a sequence of motions until I’m home, exhausted, and not sure where the day went.

The world is tough and for those of us with children during a pandemic, it has been particularly challenging. But, as I walked away — healthy and unaided — from the Mays Cancer Center, I realized that it's important to let ourselves see and feel the day, in all its ups and downs, and to count our many blessings.

As I took the elevator to the first floor, I hoped that each mother, spouse, neighbor, grandparent, and son would leave the cancer center for the last time — ringing the bell behind them.