My First Visit to the "Cancer Center"

I had an appointment with Dr. Paul Rosenblatt today. He is a radiation oncologist, and he practices at the "Dan Rudy Cancer Center," which is located at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, TN. First, a thought about having an appointment at a cancer center. It sucks, to tell the truth. Wow. You really feel like you've arrived in terms of having health problems when you pull into the parking lot for the "cancer center." Walking in felt creepy, and I honestly felt like I did not belong there. The other people in the waiting room were older and appeared to be in poor health. Not me. Young. Healthy. Fit. But still, a patient at the "cancer center."

More on Dr. Rosenblatt later, but let me just say that this dear soul from Linden, NJ is one of my new favorite people. I didn't like everything he had to say (particularly the bit about how even if my lymph nodes are "clear," I may still have to have chemo), but this man literally sat with me for 2 hours explaining and diagramming everything he could about my cancer, the radiation treatment and its side effects, and listening to me deep breathe from time to time. He really was a dear person with a funny sense of humor, a wicked intelligence and a clear passion for stamping out cancer. He's gonna be a member of my cancer-fighting team, for sure!!

One more note about my morning. Along this road, and I plan to write about this in more detail later, God has shown himself to me at different times and in different ways. After my deliriously happy week of "denial" since last Tuesday (i.e. no doctor's appointments, and lots of domestic bliss -- well, okay, I'll admit that I didn't enjoy the laundry, but the rest of the stuff was okay), the rubber hit the road this morning and I had to drag myself over to the hospital for this appointment. I pulled into the hospital grounds, circled around to the "cancer center" parking lot (ugh), and just as I started to pull into that parking lot (with my special parking code -- aren't I lucky??), I looked out my driver's side window and saw.... a rainbow. It really wasn't the kind of day you'd expect to see a rainbow, but there it was, right outside my window. Not to be overly dramatic, but my eyes filled with tears, because I knew -- I just knew -- that this was a sign of hope from God. After parking and getting out of the car, I walked out of the garage to see if the rainbow was still there and it wasn't. But it had been there for me in that moment when I needed it most, and I was ever so thankful for that grace.

As we used to say every Sunday morning at the start of our worship service at Prospect Presbyterian Church in Maplewood, New Jersey, "God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good." Granted, I went through periods of time -- namely, around the diagnosis of our middle child with a chromosomal abnormality and autism -- when I could barely get those words out, but I do believe that God is good, and that he loves us, and that he is there for those of us who are open to receiving his Grace. And I believe that He'll carry me through this trial, like He has all of the other trials I've been through in my relatively short lifetime.

Thanks again for caring enough to read my blog.....

Erin