Thriving not just surviving
A
cancer diagnosis invades a whole family. I’ve once heard it described by a cancer survivor as akin to a grenade going off in your living room. At the UAB Medicine-Russell Medical Cancer Center, we do a pretty darn good job of taking care of cancer patients medically. What you might not know is that we do a good job of supporting them spiritually and emotionally as well. For instance, first cardinal rule: We never refer to patients by their tumor site, as is sometimes the case in some hospitals. Mrs. Smith is not the colon cancer in Room 5. Mrs. Smith is a grandmother who loves to make quilts, cooks a
32 Lake Martin Living
mean green bean casserole and happens to have a diagnosis of colon cancer (Mrs. Smith, of course, is a hypothetical patient). Because we are all about the whole person, we recently started a monthly support group for people who are undergoing or recently completed cancer treatment. We meet at 5 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month in the Bill and Mary Ann Hardy Community Room at Russell Medical. The community room is on the right just inside the entrance of the professional building. Most cancer centers have moved from calling these folks cancer patients and now call them cancer survivors. That was definitely an improvement in our thought processes, but I want to evolve that process one more step. I prefer to think of people with cancer as “cancer thrivers.” I don’t want them to simply survive cancer and its treatment. I want them to thrive, in spite of their cancer … or maybe because of it. I don’t blame God for bad things that happen. I see God in the growth that follows those bad events.
