Myeloma Mom: We’re All In This Together
I have a 10-year-old daughter, which means I’ve seen the Disney Channel movie High School Musical many, many times. I’m not sure how many times; I’ll just say I’ve seen it more times than any mentally healthy person really should.
If you don’t have a 10-year-old living in your house, I’ll sum up the plot: The movie is about a group of high school students who are all in a musical.
At the very end of the movie, they decide they’ve all become friends via said musical, and they perform an extravagant song-and-dance number in the school gym called, “We’re All in This Together.”
Sample lyrics:
We’re all in this together
Once we know
That we are
We’re all stars
And we see that!
The lyrics don’t make tons of sense, I admit, but the song is dang catchy, and it was running through my head the last time I visited the cancer center.
Cancer patients aren’t nearly as perky as the stars of High School Musical, thank goodness, but we do all have a bond, one giant thing in common. And we all seem fairly upbeat about it when we’re all together.
When I was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma, I had a lot of misconceptions about what life as a cancer patient was like.
I thought everyone would stare at me when I walked into the cancer center waiting room, wondering what horrible disease I had. I thought the receptionist would take my name, wide-eyed and shaking. I thought the person next to me would turn to me and say, “So, what’re you in for?” I would have to explain, and of course they’d be shocked.
After nearly 10 years of visiting the cancer center waiting room, nobody has ever asked me that. And I’ve never asked anyone else.
We all seem to know: If you’re in this waiting room, you’re one of us. We don’t need to ask each other any more questions about our diseases. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s compare our e-readers, or just hang out quietly. It’s OK.
I also thought the nurse would glance at my chart and immediately freak out at the notion of my horrible disease. She’d scream, “YOU HAVE WHAT???” She’d then throw the chart in the air, run down the hallway, and leap out the window, like the Cowardly Lion running from the Wizard’s throne room in The Wizard of Oz.
Nope, that’s never happened, either. The nurses are all completely cool with my uncool disease. I’m treated like I’m there for any other routine checkup.
Last, I thought that the cancer center waiting room would be a dreary, dark place filled with somber, crying people.
It turns out that the cancer center waiting room is, well, normal.
It’s not sad. It’s not dreary. It’s bright, and there’s usually upbeat ‘80s music playing in the background.
In fact, it’s almost relaxing, because it’s the one place I know I’m not “the gal with the weird disease.” Everybody in the room has a weird disease. We don’t look at each other funny, because we’re all in this together.
As I sat in the waiting room the other day, I witnessed an animated conversation between an 80-ish man and a teenage boy, who was the grandson of one of the other patients. They talked for probably 20 minutes about books they liked, about Star Trek and Star Wars.
While I disagreed with the teenage boy (Episode One was not a good movie, son; it just wasn’t), I wondered if this kind of conversation would happen anywhere else. When would two such different-seeming people be drawn together to sit and talk and discover they had so much in common?
We’re not going to get up and dance, but I think cancer patients all get it. We’re all in this together. I’ll change a few words from High School Musical, and we’ll have our own new chant:
Cancer patients everywhere
Wave your hands up in the air
That’s the way we do it
Let’s get to it
Come on, everyone!
Are you all with me? Or do I need to stop watching the Disney Channel?
Karen Crowley is a multiple myeloma patient and columnist at The Myeloma Beacon. You can view a list of her columns here.
If you are interested in writing a regular column for The Myeloma Beacon, please contact the Beacon team at .
Thanks for the upbeat column, Karen! In our centre's waiting room, there is a large screen TV, turned to the national news channel, and many people are watching that. The nicest times there are when the volunteer 'tea ladies' come by with their trolleys of packaged biscuits, juice, tea or coffee. It is a pleasant atmosphere there! Sometimes I do see people I have met over the years there, or at the lab, but usually I don't know anyone else.
Good Morning Karen,
Thanks for that upbeat column. It was fun to read, and I sat at my computer and sang your chant, waving my hands in the air. Loved it, I thought I was at Club Med when they sing "hands up baby, hands up" Don't know if you know that song?? It's catchy.
80's music, indeed.
Don't need Disney !
I bet it was fun, with the kids.
For people like us
In places like this
We need all the hope
That we can get
Oh, I still believe
- The Call - I Still Believe (Great Design)
Aloha Karen,
You sound like my wife singing these Disney tunes! Thanks for making me laugh.
We all need to be reminded to look on the brighter side once in a while.
Aloha
Tom
Hi Karen,
I was thinking that you might add an audio clip of you singing your song. I like the lyrics but I need some help with the melody. I'm thinking a sing-a-long in the Dana Farber waiting area would be fun for the nurses. Then again, maybe not.
Nice story....
Karen,
I do not have much to add other than to say your experience with the cancer center has been very much like mine. And I am glad it is that way.
Spot on essay!!!
Well done and it describes my visit today, like just about any day I visit Hackensack. Yes the realities of MM are serious, but it helps that patients and staff are helpful and friendly at all times. I think it may be the best environment , for even for when a doctor has to deliver not so good news to a patient., there could be one more option to try that a positive environment might bring out. A dreary, morbid environment would suppress such thinking .it doesn't take a psychology major to figure out that a positive environment can be contagious for all.
Karen, thanks, but its 3:35 AM in NJ and I can't get the Disney song out of head. Today 's dex isn't helping either!
Mike
Hi Karen,
Yes and yes.
Yes, I'm with you! I remember walking into the cancer center a couple months after my SCT. As I entered the building, I took off the baseball cap I'd self-consciously been wearing to sort of hide my bald head. I turned to my wife and said, "I don't need it here; I'm among my people now." I still feel that way. We really are all in this together.
And, yes, I do think you should watch less of the Disney Channel.
Great column!
Mike
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