THE WATCHER

A Sacred Place

I was not prepared to see my first chemotherapy room. It was a pilgrimage of necessity not desire. I didn’t want to be here, this room, this awful cold calculating room, where percentages and hope intertwine with toxins. This room, where you leave a bit less then when you came, this room where all life stops just long enough to let you know that all life stops.

If you have never been to a chemo room, imagine four or more industrial reclining loungers side by side, facing four or more identical reclining loungers. These pods are multiplied as big as the room will permit, with a few scattered fillers to pack the space. One wall made entirely of windows helps you feel unconfined in a place where you feel trapped. Between each chair is a shiny metal stand with two arms on wheels with a pump clamped to it. Each chrome tree holds treatments; these bags of medicine hang upside down like transparent bats, multiplying as the room fills up with patients. As you gaze over the horizon of chair backs you see dozens of stands holding the countless chemotherapy bags that endlessly drip into the patients. Most the liquids are colorless, but some are the glowing orange, red and yellow, brighter than highlighters, something you would never put in your body, yet they do. Some of the bags are gallons and some as small as thimbles. These rooms are a testament to the efficient delivery of the miracle of modern medicine, yet they seem chaotic and uncontrolled, more improvised; the art of medicine.

There is a reverent atmosphere in the room as oncology nurses scatter about attending to patients, trying to make the infusions bearable. You can’t help but look around into the faces and watch patients color drain out in time to the chemotherapy going in. I see caregivers age before my eyes as they watch their loved ones endure treatments. There is some small talk and various distractions to pass the endless hours, but in reality it is just barely tolerable.

Yet somehow, these rooms are filled with hope. You wouldn’t be there if you didn’t have hope. You hope that you survive the treatments and you hope that your personal chemical makeup is receptive to your chemo cocktail so you will have a survival story to tell someday. You hope.

Chemotherapy rooms are also places where you shouldn’t be alone. This is a space where a friendly face is a life line to something familiar. Even if you don’t say a word, you can make a difference by being present and sharing a moment in time. This place changes you forever, this place, this sacred place.