It has been quite a week. While everyone is planning for the holidays, perhaps booking travel, shipping gifts and making special cookies, some are stopping by the center- usually in ugly Christmas sweaters or head antlers. It’s almost a theme. A few I have not seen for some time and so I am grateful for the visits.
Josselyn is back in Florida after a year of caring for her mother in Alabama. “Doc, I gotta tell you that you are the wrongest person in the world”. While that may be true on any given day, it is not the reason for the smug and smiling face. Josselyn is here to show me pics of her darling 3 month old daughter. A true miracle since I had advised that she could lose fertility with radiation to the pelvis- cancer robbing even parenthood. I am thrilled to be so very wrong.
“Send the Doc over stat”. I race to the pet scanner, but there is no emergency- just Chelsea who is undergoing a scan for melanoma. The chief tech can’t believe the difference. Her first scan three years ago looked like paint splatter. Her type of disease responded so well to chemo that the scan shows no tumors and she looks fit and well. Another absolute miracle for this most serious of skin cancers.
Simone came from the islands just before covid to help care for twin grandchildren. To her dismay, she was found to have lung cancer to brain. After radiation and currently on chemo, the brain scan is almost negative and she is back to caring for the babies, crediting her own miracle. ” I am only here because God knows they need me”.
Fred stopped by visiting from across the state. Treated over two years ago, he is active, working and feeling great after negative scans and endocopies for stage 4 esophageal cancer. “Doc, I am a friggen miracle!” I’ll say. These events occur here everyday and while a store clerk said, “Oh, you are a cancer doctor so you have to give bad news”. Tut tut tut. I quickly replied that I couldn’t imagine any greater honor. It is not the difficult issues people have to confront. It is the very real opportunity for salvage, success, hope or at least comfort and peace. Who wouldn’t want to witness this daily? This sacred space is my own miracle.
Sure there are challenges, but when the light shines bright, we are reminded that there is a force you can call on in the best and worst of times. The Christmas song that says, “Let your heart be light” reminds us that our troubles are never completely out of sight, but hope is never false. You have a lot on your shoulders. Believe that you have the fortitude and strength you need. When you do, put aside the fear and recognize even the small miracles in your own life. Maybe you too can enjoy being “wrongest person in the world”. I may have concern and expectations, but hope is where the true magic of miracles lives.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays. May God Bless you and yours.