The Community at M.D. Anderson vs. The Beast

I just returned from a quick trip to Houston where my dad had surgery at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. (quick side note – Dad is GREAT after having a benign tumor removed from inside his head. That’s a whole other crazy story unto itself) Across the street from M.D. Anderson is the Rotary House Hotel – a hotel run by Marriott, but part of the Texas Medical Center complex in Houston. You have to have a patient number to even check-in to the Rotary House. So, as soon as you walk in – to the hotel or hospital, either one – you are automatically ‘in’. Not ‘in’ as in ‘hip’, but ‘in’ as in ‘in the group’ or ‘on the team’ or ‘one of us’. The Beast* of Cancer has touched you in some manner.

Being ‘in’ at M.D. Anderson reminds me of when Christopher Reeve was voted president of the American Paralysis Association. He said, “I’m president of a club I wouldn't want to join.” As soon as you walk into M.D. Anderson you are in a wonderful community of people who never want to join that particular community. You are given a front-row seat as people you don’t know engage in the most intimate and basic struggles in life – the fight to stay alive.

If you are among the patients or family at M.D. Anderson, it’s because the Beast has clutched a life, shaken it hither and yon, and left it upside down, leaving the occupant to wonder if he/she will live long enough to right themselves.

You’re automatically on the team and granted unlimited kindness, for no one knows where your fight has taken you that day. Volunteers, patients, doctors, technicians, food-service workers, patient’s families, housekeepers, nurses and so many more all openly and warmly welcome you as one of their own – for you are fighting the fight, as well. There’s no elevator rage, line-position envy, or grudging the cafeteria prices. There’s plenty of, “No, you go ahead.” “You have a great day, Sugar” and piles and piles of laughter. It’s as if one of the unspoken rules is that we must not let the Beast sense any disunity among the survivors! We must present a united front. There are smiles and nods and searching eyes. As I looked into the eyes of survivors, I saw the same questions I was asking internally reflected back: “Why are you here?” “How are you holding up?” and, of course, “Are you going to make it? You’re going to make it, right? My own hope depends on you making it – you HAVE to make it!”

It seems that even my kids picked up on it. I took them with me, honestly, because it was easier than figuring out how else to juggle them, and because I knew they would be fine. They were more than fine. They seemed to sense being admitted into the community of survivors, as well. They walked and walked and hiked the maze that is M.D. Anderson. They waited and waited and waited some more. They did it all without griping or arguing -- with me OR each other! Truly, there is some magic dust in the halls of M.D. Anderson.

Maybe it’s the visible reminders of the survivors. We saw an elderly woman with no nose. We saw a 20-something young lady with no right shoulder or arm. We saw three bald women and one precious bald little girl – two of the ladies had beautiful sequined hats, all had beautiful, beaming smiles. We saw IV pole after IV pole being waltzed through the halls by its accompanying survivor. We sat in the waiting room with the family of a gentleman who was having his esophagus removed and his stomach stretched up to do the job of the esophagus. We saw one anguished man pace the waiting room for no less than 6 hours – he was still pacing when we left.

Today as I drove back and returned to civilization and real life – maybe more accurately: real shallow life, I wondered what life would look like if we gave everyone the same kindnesses out here. What if the person who almost walked into you without seeing you had spent all morning in a waiting room waiting on news of a loved one? What if the gentleman who was impatient had been unable to eat while waiting on a test that has been delayed by hours? What if the “idiot driver” had vision overtaken by tears as the enormity of the Beast overwhelmed her? My precious preacher keeps talking about what makes us be community to each other. I'm pretty sure the folks at M.D. Anderson have a handle on it. Heaven forbid we must be touched by the Beast to figure it out.

Like everyone else, I never wanted to be introduced to anything about The Beast – the hospital that treats it, the community that fights it, or the medical personnel that would devote their lives to fighting it. Now that I have been, though, I feel so blessed to be a part of that world – just a tiny, little way-out fringe part, quietly looking on, finding ENORMOUS blessings in my family’s situation, while pleading-praying for those around me. Leave it to The Beast to put all of life into perspective.

(*I stole the reference to cancer as The Beast from a fabulous article at the back of the current ACU Today that I cannot currently locate and isn't posted online yet-- when I find the originator of the phrase, I will give him due credit as the accurate genius he is)