Rays of Light at Karmanos

The first five months of my twenty-first year were spent killing cancer.

It started with surgery in Grand Rapids, MI and then it continued with chemotherapy at Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detriot.





I designated different people "Team Captain" as I faced different obstacles. The last official Team Captain was nurse Robin (pictured left, waking me up).

Every morning she really got a kick out of waking me up. You can tell by the smile on her face. In fact, I think it is the first thing she did when she got to work. I guess it got her day started off right.

She is a big reason reason I didn't go insane... well, not too insane while I received "chemo therapy." Chemo is not therapeutic for the mind except that it is the only human hope of survival anything else is a miracle, an act of God, in my opinion.

I read Lance Armstrong's book It's Not About the Bike and he illustrates the improtance of a superhuman Nurse practitioner. I thought that Lancey would, of course, get the best Nurse practitioner known to man, but apparently I was probably wrong. Robin King is, in my mind, the kindest, most effective, and intelligent professional a cancer patient could hope to be working with. She has my utmost respect and admiration.

There is a boatload (def: overwhelming amount) of details to manage when it comes to killing cancer. Robin is a cancer killing machine, and she does it with a smile.

I wanted try to avoid war-metaphor when describing this chapter of my life, but it fits really well.

There are several battles taking place when one fights cancer. First, you have the mind, soul, spiritual, emotional, ect. battle. Secondly there is the logistical battle. I sang a song while in the mist of a logistical battle. It goes like this:

It's a logistical nightmare...
It's a logistical nightmare...
It's a logistical nightmare...
It's a logistical nightmare...
Repeat as necessary







Here are two people who really made my stays at Karmanos great. I never prayed to God to send angels to gaurd me. Thankfully, I didn't have to because I was sent a host of them to surround me during those times. Agnus and Christine are the epitome of nursing at its best. In addition, they are great people - hardworking, compassionate, and fun. Christine, on the right, is wearing a pin that sends a message about what she is an expert at.