Maybe it’s because I’m a survivor myself, but I always find UTMDAnderson an upbeat place, and did so from my first visit there following diagnosis. The place is full of desperately ill, gaunt, pale people, looking for hope. Yet the place is airy and bright, the piano is playing in the lobby, the staff is excessively upbeat and smiling. It IS hopeful. And it IS so much better than the waiting room of South Austin Cancer Center, my version of Texas Oncology.

I’ve always found the waiting room at the local cancer center too dark (physically and psychologically), too quiet. I’d much rather be in a place where you have trouble hearing your name called by the nurse. There’s nothing worse than hearing the monotone calling of your own name in the imposing quiet of the waiting area. I’ll be quiet when I’m dead (I guess); in this life I need some noise.

A couple of years ago, just as I heard that dreaded announcement of my name, an elder friend of mine was wheeled up to the receptionists’ desk. Sue was a lively, loud person under all circumstances. I walked over to Sue and greeted her with a question to which I knew the generic answer, but I wanted hear HER answer. Sue would liven this place up.

“Sue, what are you doing here?”

“WELL, THEY TELL ME I’M DYIN’!.” She said it with a loud, happy voice that bounced around the waiting area.

“Hell, Sue. We’re all dyin’. The only question is when.”

“I GUESS THAT’S ABOUT RIGHT. BUT I’LL KEEP TAKIN’ WHAT THEY’RE GIVIN’.”

She died of her cancer eight or nine months later.

I don’t what the other gathered patients in that waiting room thought of our conversation. Most were likely uncomfortable with, if not discomforted by, the words giving voice to their own reality. But at least Sue and I were alive and lively, and I smile every time I think of her and that conversation.