The Waiting Room by Dr. Juan Harrison
The Waiting Room
A lady recently said to me that I had had a wonderful life. She was right, and I’m not even Jimmy Stewart in a classic movie at Christmas. I frequently remind my wife how blessed we are with healthy family unit still intact and communication lines still open as we keep Facetime hopping watching one son doing math tutoring with the kindergartener before they head to the pool while the other son is sending videos of his daughter in riding camp as she sits atop the paint horse during her birthday gift riding camp.
If we could just bottle up those Norman Rockwell moments, but we can’t. That’s when it dawns on you that we better enjoy the good, fuzzy times because some dark ones are heading down the road to your house. As of this writing I’m a third through my 45 radiation treatments and have left the chemo pills behind with only 6 more arm burning hormone shots left over the next 18 months. My wife and I couldn’t name all the times we’ve been blessed or got to share a blessing with someone in the waiting room. Earlier, like a lot of you, I started trying to picture what each of the biopsies, sonograms, CAT scans, PET scans, colonoscopy, cancer shots, and 3 months of my life running up and down the highway to Paris would look like.
Some things were a little worse, but most were tolerable. It wasn’t until my wife and I became a daily part of the waiting room crowd did I realize once again how blessed we are. We met and bonded quickly with future Facebook friends as we saw many of them battling multiple issues. As we shared our stories and diagnoses, we found encouragement and renewed strength. God had allowed us to be a part of a whole new journey that otherwise we would have missed. My wife frequently touches my arm to tell me how amazing I’ve been as we face this new opponent. After seeing some of the challenges my new acquaintances are dealing with, I say I’m the lucky one. I can see an end in sight for my tour of duty. For many of them, taint necessarily so.
I frequently remind us that life is a lot about our perspective. You complained about not having any shoes until you saw a man with no feet. I’ve seen that and more. I’m not sure if God sent me to the cancer center to see how truly blessed I am, or maybe He wanted to introduce me to a whole new crowd where I could bless and be blessed. He says we see through a glass darkly; He sees clearly. He sees the big picture; we see the now. Life is about perspective. Thank you, Lord, for reminding me how blessed we are. There but for the grace of God go I.
By Dr. Juan Harrison
