As long as I live, I will never forget the kindness and calm that Hannah brought me and my son our first night on CHOP's oncology floor. I had never felt so frazzled, scared, or down, and she brought a sense of normalcy and positivity that snapped me back into a coherent state.
Please allow me to set the stage. It had been a grueling, emotional, and uncertain day for us. Rewinding to the previous week, in fact, my 16-year-old son, K had been on the hematology floor Friday and Saturday nights. We were released on Sunday and spent exactly one night at home before learning that we needed to return to CHOP, this time to oncology. K's bone marrow biopsy had shown signs of "intruders." I wish I could say now that this was the worst April Fool's joke ever, but it instead represented the start of a new reality for us.
Shaken up and confused, I picked K up at his high school and, along with his dad, made the trip down to CHOP's Buerger Building. While there, we were told so much but nothing all at once: cells were found, but the formal diagnosis and treatment plan were still unknown. We would be admitted but would have to continue to wait. I can honestly say that I don't wish the whirlwind of mental and emotional gymnastics that followed on even my worst enemy.
In a daze, we walked to our new room, this time with a roommate, which ultimately proved wonderfully fateful, but at the time made the situation even more stressful: we didn't have enough room for our things, let alone our three bodies, and of course, had no privacy. At that moment, our collective lives seemed to take a drastic turn for the worst. The only thing keeping me from crawling into the fetal position was K himself, who remained cheerful, calm, and positive.
Enter Hannah.
Hannah came in with a bright spirit and talked to us as though we were just hanging out with her for the night, not as people who had just received a life-altering cancer diagnosis and were now jammed into a hospital room with two strangers. She allowed me some tears and gave me a hug. With a wink and a nod, she allowed K some liberties that, while minor, he fully appreciated—again, treating us as people who had been through a hellish day, not as wards of the hospital. She showed K what some of his data on her computer meant and how it generated certain results. This refocused his mind and made him feel special, acknowledging him as a trusted, intelligent "older kid." And when I had on American Idol later in the evening, she came in and watched with me for a few minutes, sharing stories about some of the contestants and judges and talking about her favorites.
I truly hope Hannah reads this because I want her to know that those frivolous, and to her likely forgettable, conversations helped snap me out of my funk and changed my whole mood. K and I watch and talk about Idol at home, so for that moment, things felt kind of normal and almost bearable. I felt a little less panicked and alone. And we made it through that night.
Since then, K has been diagnosed with B-cell ALL and assigned a treatment plan. He is out of the hospital and back at school for the time being, with his first outpatient treatment scheduled for later this week. We have gotten through the not-knowing hump and moved on to the treatment phase, which while still scary and full of uncertainty, is more definitive and positive for me. We are on our way to the "c" word I greatly prefer: cure.
But I can't thank Hannah enough for getting both of us through that first traumatic night, not by providing platitudes or clichéd support, but by acknowledging our, and my, pain and then treating us like friends, rather than patients. It meant the world to me, and I will always hold her in my heart because of it.
She is a true asset to the CHOP organization.