10/31/2010

I wrote this earlier tonight as a part of the private journal I've been keeping lately. I'm still undecided about what I should choose to share with everyone and what I want to keep to myself, but I figured I'd give this one a try. It's much more personal than everything else so hopefully it goes over well...

And just like that this whole thing became real. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I came across her facebook page. Everyone wrote their condolences and I had no idea what they meant until I came across the post that asked what color her wings were…she was gone. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting there in the waiting room, nervous as all hell, but there were angels in the room that day. I never thought I believed in angels until I was sitting there wondering what was going to happen to me. It was my first appointment at Sloan Kettering and all I can remember feeling was that I shouldn’t have to be there, I was too young to be there. I looked around the room and everyone was old and looked to be in rough shape. Who was I kidding? I was in pretty rough shape too. I hadn’t had a full night of sleep in about a week and was in so much pain it was hard to sit still in one position for any amount of time. I offered a word or two as my parents filled out the paperwork with so many questions I couldn’t even keep track. Truthfully I wasn’t really concerned. My mind was in a million different places, all of which were somewhere other than here. A gentleman came up to us as we huddled around the paperwork and said, “Excuse me, but are you a cancer patient?” Cancer patient?!? And that’s when it hit me. That’s what I was. I was no longer the normal 21 year old college kid with nothing too much to worry about other than how much spare money I had for beer this weekend or which girls paid noticeably more attention to me lately. But no, here I was sitting in the waiting room of a hospital for people with cancer. I hesitated for a moment and then replied that I was a patient. This was the hardest admission of my life. I’ve been caught in lies and have been forced to admit when I was wrong, but admitting that I was a cancer patient was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to tell anyone. He handed me a bracelet which read ‘I am Strong’ and looked me dead in the eye and told me that I was in the best hospital in the world. He was a survivor of a radical surgery in which the doctors removed most of his vital organs and then pieced him back together. He saw how worried I was sitting there in that room and said he just knew he had to come over and talk to me. I wanted to break down and cry right then and there in front of everyone, but I was already being stared at by since I was so young and in such bad condition that I couldn’t give in to my emotions and show weakness on only my first day. I saw him once more after that while I was waiting to have a colonoscopy done at the main hospital building. He was standing in the hallway and shook my hand and told me that there was nothing to worry about because I would be taken care of. My second angel came in the form of a small blonde who I had stolen the title of ‘Youngest Patient’ from. She knew just how to keep me calm because she had been in the same situation as me a few years earlier. She even handed me a Victoria’s Secret magazine during one of my future treatments because she knew how much the chemo sucked, so she thought she’d provide me with some enjoyment. She always knew how to put a smile on my face long before I realized that it was ok to smile or laugh in a place that was in the most serious business of all. I wasn’t too sure angels ever existed, but I have always believed in signs from God or whatever it is that is out there. Maybe there are just strange coincidences…but I have experienced things that sometimes show evidence that something else is going on. These people knew that they needed to come and speak to my family and I. They were compelled to share their stories as something for us to use as hope. I’m not sure I would have made it through those first few days with the strength that I did had I not met those very special individuals. I am forever grateful I did meet them though, and I know that I’ll see them again, hopefully not for a very long time, and be able to thank them for having the courage to come and speak to the new kid who was sick and terrified of the journey that lay ahead of him. That is why I am doing all of this…who knows, maybe someday I’ll be someone’s angel…