A Stunt
My latest good news is that three tests on April 1 could detect no trace of cancer. That's six months in complete remission. Only four and a half years more and they will call me "cured!"
Back during Round Four of my chemotherapy, I decided to do a playful thing one evening -- at risk of being whisked off to the Psych Ward. At 8 pm each day the nursing staff shifts changed. I had with me a compact disk player and a CD of Scottish bagpipe music. This was to cheer me up. I thought I would see how many other patients and staff I could cheer up with my stunt.
I taped the player and two speakers onto the tall, rolling stand from which hung a bag of methotrexate dripping into my veins. To simulate a bagpipe, I clutched to my bosom a bed pillow with a soda straw sticking out of it into my mouth. Thus accoutered, I stepped out of Room 1310 and clicked the player onto Track #1, a rousing version of "Amazing Grace."
As it played, I approached the twenty or so staff gathered around the nursing station. They all smiled, laughed and applauded as I rhythmically pumped the pillow and puffed into the soda straw -- to the immortal strains of the beloved hymn.
This initial success emboldened me to take my show on the road. I visited each of the twenty-nine rooms housing a cancer patient on my floor. Many welcomed me with smiles and laughs like the staff had. These were refreshing signs of life and hope and joy in the midst of life-threatening illness. I pronounced a blessing to each room, something like, "May the amazing grace of the living God visit and remain in this room."
About half of the rooms gave me this kind of cheerful welcome. The other half either closed their doors, or looked away from me, even as I beamed my words of blessing to them. Some met my steady, smiling gaze with their own steady, sullen gaze. These refused to be cheered, or encouraged, or amazed by grace. Theirs was the face of hopelessness, and the look of death.
"Half and half," I pondered. I wondered if this is what God sees as He clowns His friendly invitation into each human being's awareness. He beckons, "Can we be friends in a special way I have in mind for us?" Some answer, "Sure, I am amazed that You offer anything to me at all." Others answer, "Leave me alone. I'll call the shots in my life."
The willingness to be amazed and amused is childlike. It tingles with the promise of long life embodied in childhood vigor. Thus we have it from Jesus, "You must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven."
Back during Round Four of my chemotherapy, I decided to do a playful thing one evening -- at risk of being whisked off to the Psych Ward. At 8 pm each day the nursing staff shifts changed. I had with me a compact disk player and a CD of Scottish bagpipe music. This was to cheer me up. I thought I would see how many other patients and staff I could cheer up with my stunt.
I taped the player and two speakers onto the tall, rolling stand from which hung a bag of methotrexate dripping into my veins. To simulate a bagpipe, I clutched to my bosom a bed pillow with a soda straw sticking out of it into my mouth. Thus accoutered, I stepped out of Room 1310 and clicked the player onto Track #1, a rousing version of "Amazing Grace."
As it played, I approached the twenty or so staff gathered around the nursing station. They all smiled, laughed and applauded as I rhythmically pumped the pillow and puffed into the soda straw -- to the immortal strains of the beloved hymn.
This initial success emboldened me to take my show on the road. I visited each of the twenty-nine rooms housing a cancer patient on my floor. Many welcomed me with smiles and laughs like the staff had. These were refreshing signs of life and hope and joy in the midst of life-threatening illness. I pronounced a blessing to each room, something like, "May the amazing grace of the living God visit and remain in this room."
About half of the rooms gave me this kind of cheerful welcome. The other half either closed their doors, or looked away from me, even as I beamed my words of blessing to them. Some met my steady, smiling gaze with their own steady, sullen gaze. These refused to be cheered, or encouraged, or amazed by grace. Theirs was the face of hopelessness, and the look of death.
"Half and half," I pondered. I wondered if this is what God sees as He clowns His friendly invitation into each human being's awareness. He beckons, "Can we be friends in a special way I have in mind for us?" Some answer, "Sure, I am amazed that You offer anything to me at all." Others answer, "Leave me alone. I'll call the shots in my life."
The willingness to be amazed and amused is childlike. It tingles with the promise of long life embodied in childhood vigor. Thus we have it from Jesus, "You must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven."
posted by Dr. Dennis L. Gibson at 3:23 PM
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