Some Folks Have Giants in Their Lives

Over the past week or so I’ve had the opportunity to ferry some of our residents to treatment in one of the cancer radiation centers we have here in Wichita. I take them to their appointments, then wait in the waiting area until they’re finished, which usually isn’t long.

If you have a chance, you should go to one of those waiting areas and just observe for awhile. You see everyone there. Young, old, male, female. Disabled, able-bodied, happy, sad. They’re all there, and they’re all there for one reason; they have cancer.

Some have that pallid look that comes with the more advanced forms, and/or I suspect, liver cancer. Others have do-rags or are disfigured in some way, possibly due to surgeries.

I am surprised, however, at the number who at least seem on the outside as if it’s not the end of the world, but rather it’s (their cancer) just something they have to do. There is joking and laughter, conversation among patients and families, and banter with the staff. Things seem so normal, but it’s so obvious that things are not at all “normal”.

I had the audacity one day to look at a middle-aged man coming out of the center and silently wondering what he was doing in there to begin with. He walked healthily, looked normal, and seemed to be just fine. I said “thank you” when he held the door for my resident and me, and he said something in return. However, I couldn’t understand him because he whispered it…he had no larynx. That probably was a result of throat cancer and he was being treated for it. I felt like a heel in the next few minutes.

I don’t know if you’ve fought cancer or not. If you have, you’re a hero in my books regardless of how it turns out. If you haven’t, thank God for your health and walk a little more circumspectly and reverently in the days ahead, knowing that others are facing giants daily; the likes of which you’ve never seen before.