Laughter in the Infusion Lab

Today was chemo day. Third round with five more to go. Nearly halfway there. During Mike's first round of chemo we didn't spend much time at the infusion center. It was a pretty quick in and out type of thing, maybe taking all of an hour on a long day. A flurry of activity: weight, lab, standardized "how are ya?" questions followed by short wait before his pump was hooked up. This time is different; we spend about 4 hours at the center.

It's not what you might think. No room crammed with rows of chairs filled by gaunt looking ghost people. There isn't anyone moaning in pain, nobody's trying to hurl up an intestine in the next room, people aren't being wheeled by in chairs, looking like death. Oh, occasionally there is somebody with an obvious head rag on due to hair loss and another looking Minnesota winter pale, but for the most part the people look like you or me.

The infusion center is bright with private rooms; some with windows and all with a curtain at one end for the occasional privacy. There are reclining chairs, TVs, DVD players, phones and a computer on the wall. There is a lounge with books, games, coffee, juice, and a snack machine. The sound of The Price is Right comes from one room, Christmas music from another and most surprising of all laughter. The nurses laugh, the patients laugh and those accompanying the patients laugh. Surprising huh? People fighting cancer laughing. Laughing!

Mike laughed at chemo today (something I said I think). He laughed that big loud laugh that he is most noted for. The one that Trish lives for. The laugh that makes him throw his head back and makes me laugh with him. This is astounding. Laughing and life inside a chemo infusion center. It's clear that there is too much TV drama depicting chemo patients as albino raisins with wisps of hair and toothpick limbs, permeating our collective brains. Cancer used to equal death. Chemo was just something used to "give ya a little time to get things in order" back in the day. Least that was the way it seemed. A few people got lucky and lived for a long cancer-free time after but most, it seemed, didn't. Today chemo is something to "give ya the rest of your life." And that's what all those people who are taking chemo are doing there, claiming the rest of their lives and living it in the process. Including us.

Personally, I gotta tell you I was petrified of Mike's chemo and I'm still not really excited about this go of it, but those people today, all those living lives, looking good, smiling and laughing, well they give me hope and strength. There is life after cancer but there is life with cancer too and when we can laugh about it....well good for us.

Peace,

Karen

PS: Of note is that I beat Mike at two games of Scrabble during chemo today though he's gonna tell you I cheated on the second game.