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A New Team Sport
By Stephanie Kemp








Nov 30, 2024

Huntington Hospital, Six West

I will never be able to explain this week.

So for once, I am not going to try (that hard).

I have never been so grateful for the kindness of people or the strength of my body. Every time I am sad or scared or twisted in cords (that was only at the beginning), an astounding human being bounds into the room as if on a magic mind meld call to physically or emotionally uncoil me, and every time I worry about my vitals flagging, they come through.

“We need to see how your body responds to the medicine. If it does ok, you can do the next 5 cycles from home. You will still have the bag attached 24/7 from Monday - Friday and would have to come in on Wednesdays to have it refilled.” 

My walks have saved me (as usual), and each time I do a loop on this cancer floor I am reminded of how connected we are as people. Some patients are working to live, some are preparing to leave. I hear every human sound you can imagine through half closed doors and curtains.

I keep walking.

I hear Bravery and Kindness and Tears and Family (given and chosen)…Laughter.

I witness hushed hallway phone calls and try to decipher remnants of shared take out in greasy boxes.

I catch slivers of TVs on with no sound, through doors meant to be closed.

I see people staring out over tree tops through double paned glass at a hopeful blue sky or a vast blanket of black.

I smile at kids playing hide and seek under florescent lighting, trying to be kids.

I hold my chemo roller like a ski pole, reminding myself that I am athletic, even though I never really liked skiing….or being cold.

I am always thirsty.

Part of me feels like a patient, part of me feels like a spy. All of me is present.

I hear my mom’s end of life cough (and my mom’s all of life kindness) from a bed I can’t see, as an unseen woman on a similar journey tries to make her nurse feel better for having to roll her body over onto a bone or a joint or a some other body part in deep pain.

I keep walking.
10 loops is a mile.

I am happy when I circle back after Loop 7 to hear the woman and her nurse talking about grandkids.  

I hear my dad’s voice, still hoping 17 years later, that his feet were warm enough and wishing I’d thought to bring him a pair of thick socks or ask for an extra (extra) blanket.

I try to remember the story he told at the end about his friend, Dewey and a driver named Joe. 

11 more loops. 3.6 miles in all today (so far).

I am #50. It was explained to me on my second night here that sometimes nurses refer to patients by room number because it can be hard to get attached to people by name. People that will leave (in some way, no matter what), only to be immediately replaced after a room cleaning.

I have gotten to know my nurses and my team and can’t believe how much I have come to care for all of them. Their lives and families and choices and circumstances and histories. Some of them chose this life, some of them merely accepted it when the life they thought they would have didn’t work out. I will forever hold onto my little book of notes and dreams and kindnesses they all wrote to me.  It’s strange to think that a tiny purple notebook could become, in five days, one of my life’s most important artifacts. I would (and will) take it with me if there was a fire.

I would be a terrible nurse. I would probably cry all over everyone or try to write them a million poems as I put extra blankets on them without even asking if they wanted one.

At least I would listen to them and know to bring them ice chips.

I will be #50 forever, no matter who else I may (also) become and wherever else I may go, even if that means coming back here someday, to friends old and new, in a different room.

I have inadvertently joined a club.

But for now, I get to go home tonight or tomorrow.  

Either one is fine........I’m in no rush. (This is no small statement after five days of non-stop R-EPOCH with a dash of Red Devil Chemo dripping into my chest port during the entire week of Thanksgiving.)

That’s how grateful I am.

And lucky....

Even though I still hate clubs.

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Ps.  I will be back one day no matter what, with tiny cookies (too much sugar is dangerous!), and eternal thanks (thanks can be eternal, you know...) for the people we get to know on this journey we get to take, through this life we get to live…(especially if we don’t take anything -  or anyone, including ourselves and especially nurses - for granted).


cc: Papa and gM….I loved our Thanksgiving. I will eat potato chips and noodles and rice with you forever.  Thank you for bringing me those socks and accepting my belated invitation.

Duckies - even though I haven’t even met you yet.  You will be my next nurses and forever peeps. (I will even have you over for dinner.)