Keeping the faith

This morning I drove in to the hospital to have my port flushed.  I get this done every six weeks when I'm not having chemo to make sure it doesn't become clogged. I'll probably continue to have this port until I've gone five years without a recurrence...maybe longer.  It's been there nearly a year now, and I've pretty much gotten used to the feel of it, the lumps under my skin that allow easy, mostly painless access to my subclavian vein.

My change of gynecological oncologists a few months back came with a change of infusion centers.  I'm now in a large hospital center, rather than the small suite run just for the patients in the practice I used to go to.  This also means cancer patients of all kinds go to this center to receive their chemotherapy. It's a big place.  Quite a sea of cancer-riddled humanity.

I guess you could find it depressing, but I don't.  It's a comforting place for me.  Patients are being brave and doing what they need to do to fight their disease.  Most people have a friend or family member with them, sharing the time, whether attempting to play a game of Scrabble or just sitting quietly watching tv.

As I'm led to the back of the facility where people with quick procedures like me are handled, I pass numerous bald and capped heads, eyes sleepy from the pre-meds meant to prevent uncomfortable side effects of the chemo drugs.  It feels a bit odd to seem like a graduate of this program, my thick curly locks a testament to the time I logged in one of those reclining chairs, IV pole to its side.  I have a slight desire to point out my port scar as I pass each patient, as if to say, I'm one of you.  I'm just done for now.  Keep the faith.  It gets better.

Me and my short curly locks