I have hope to lend!

     About a month ago I began volunteering in the chemo infusion room at Providence hospital.  This is a place that became near and dear to my heart while Tom was sick.  It is a place that you might think was full of gloom and doom.  Certainly heartache is a constant undercurrent here.  But, it is really a wonderful place.  The nurses are incredible and very caring.  There is a camaraderie here like no other.
     
     We were in the trenches together.  We ARE in the trenches together.  It is work I find extremely satisfying even if all I am doing is handing out warm blankets.
Here is a place where people are desperate for hope. "Pleeeease tell me I will be ok!"  Oh how well I know that look.  How familiar the despondency.  Yes, you will be ok.  You may not win this battle but you will be ok.  Death need not be scary.  There is so much more to this life than this life.  I know you don't have hope today but I will let you borrow mine for now.

     Yesterday I saw 2 different men with the tell tale scar of Glioblastoma brain cancer.  A scar from brain surgery, no hair and the drug Avastin.  How familiar.  I am often faced with the dilemma of whether to share my story when asked or not.  I usually choose to share because people are desperate to hear.  However, I am well aware that I am their worst nightmare.  We did not win.  We did not beat the odds.   Somewhere deep in the recesses of their heart they know that they will not beat the odds either.  Right now it is an un-winable fight.  So, where is the hope?
 
     There is hope because someday, somewhere, someone will beat these odds and it might as well be you.  Someday something will work and it might as well be you.  There is hope because for every month we keep you alive there is a chance for a new study or new clinical trial.  There is hope because a cancer diagnosis, especially a terminal cancer diagnosis, strips away all the un-important crap of our lives.  It no longer matters whether he brushes his teeth in a way that drives you nuts or that she continues to nag about the right way to fold a towel.  It just no longer matters.  This is a gift.  The gift of living in today.  The gift of now.   Sure, it is scary.  I have never been so scared in my life.  I was facing my worst nightmare.   However, I am still here.  I was not consumed.  I lived and even though Tom did not, he is doing great right now.
   
     So, to the 6th floor chemo patients, please look past the fact that we did not win.  Please look past the fact that this may be your fate too.  Let me love on you.  Let me encourage you that even though you can't see the forest for the trees, there is a forest and for today you can borrow my faith that there will come a day when you look back on all this yuck and you will see beauty.

It is the quiet crucible of your personal, private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God's greatest gifts are given.
Wintley Phipps

God continue to give me dreams even as my old ones died.  He showed me that my life did not end when Tom's did and that He has a plan for my future.  I have hope to lend.  When it feels like you can't go on try to remember that there are many of us who have suffered much greater losses and lived to be happy.  To thrive.  To have hope.  I have hope to lend!