Thursday, February 8, 2024

     I leave the infusion center this wet morning feeling so disappointed. I expected something different, something appealing. The website pictures are beautiful. But instead, I learn that bladder cancer patients do not get to sit in the warm sunny treatment room looking out the windows.  No, we are assigned to small dark windowless solitary rooms. The papers to sign and the information packets, are geared to a different category of disease, not bladder cancer treatment. The nurse educator is apologetic.  I have a low status cancer.  

     Yes, I will get adequate treatment but I had built up an expectation of something more. I start thinking I should get a t-shirt saying, “Bladder Cancer, a low status cancer.”

      I lay on the couch for hours at home until my mind settles.  How did I arrive here.  Slowly, like a rubber ducky, I pop up and find something good and useful in the experience. I had created a dark story not based on anything.

      Maybe I just don’t want to do this treatment. Maybe this week, everyone is storm weary.  I am tired of cancer. It has been 2 and a half years of showing up. Now that I have lower expectations, I might actually have a good enough experience at the cancer center.