This article is from October 2017. Four years ago this month, I was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Twenty-eight years ago, I arrived home in October from a bone marrow transplant for recurring breast cancer. And 27 years ago in October, I accepted Jesus into my life. October is a month when I intentionally take time to celebrate and thank God for the miracles in my life.
Although I wrote the following story nine years ago, I reread it each October to remind myself of God’s gifts and the importance of expressing gratitude.
A Time to Remember – 2008
“Is there any sightseeing you would like to do while you’re in Boston?” Randa asked.
Randa was the meeting planner of the three-day conference where I spoke. “We’ll have about five hours before you need to be at the airport.”
“I don’t know if you would call it sightseeing, but I would really like to visit Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.”
“We can do that.” Randa understood my request. She knew that this hospital was where I had nearly died during an experimental bone marrow transplant.
I had gone back to Dana-Farber only once before, two years after my transplant. The experience was so painful I was sure I’d never go back again. But now I decided to give it a try, hoping I could bury some of those painful memories.
I’m glad I did. On this visit, instead of crying my eyes out as I had previously, I was filled with thankfulness and joy. My visit was a celebration. It was a time to reflect and remember how far God had brought me from that once weak, fragile patient, fighting for her life, to a thriving speaker and author, living a life filled with meaning and purpose.
And I wasn’t the only one who had made changes. We discovered Dana Farber no longer did bone marrow transplants. We entered one of the sectioned-off transplant units at next door’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. There, I witnessed the once all-too-familiar sights and smells. One nurse was putting on the protective jacket, face mask and gloves before entering a patient’s room. Another nurse noticed us and said hello.
“Nineteen years ago,” I replied, “I had a bone marrow transplant here in Boston. I wanted to come back and maybe see a patient through the door window to remember what I survived.”
“Sure.” Then she asked about my procedure and the drugs used back then.
When I mentioned the name of one of the drugs, she shuddered and said, “Oh my! They don’t even use that on humans anymore. It’s too toxic.”
That comment instantly made me feel better and less like a wimp who needed to rest a lot.
As another nurse exited a patient’s room, she told me this. “I pointed you out to her,” she said, “and I told her ‘see that beautiful woman – she had a bone marrow transplant 19 years ago.'”
I reached inside my purse for a tissue as the tears welled up. “Thank you,” I said. I knew exactly what seeing a long-term survivor would have meant to me during that time of uncertainty.
The other nurse said, “I just want you to know you have made my day.”
I looked at her wondering what she meant.
“Actually, you made my week,” she continued. “Many of the patients we work with are quite ill, and it’s encouraging to see someone as vibrant as you after all these years.”
I hadn’t come to encourage the nurses. And I didn’t expect any of the nurses there to care about me, as none had been my nurse. Until that moment, I didn’t even think about how few of us ever return to the hospital or the medical center after our recoveries. I had been given the wonderful opportunity to look this nurse in the eyes and say, “Thank you.”
Today, I am thankful for the gift of yet another year and the opportunity during these last few months to expand and revise A Gift of Mourning Glories: Restoring Your Life after Loss. I want to spread the message of hope in Christ as long as I live, and I want to celebrate the life I’ve been given.
What about you? What blessings have you failed to celebrate because you were too quick to move onto the next thing? What can you celebrate now? Who do you have to thank?
