Jaded.

I hate cancer. I hate that the best way to treat cancer is to utilize medications that kill good and bad cells. I hate that in America we immortalize cancer survivors - as though they have achieved some great understanding of strength and bravery just by surviving a hell most people hope to never know.

When I tell people I'm a nurse in pediatric oncology, I see this look of pity in their eyes. It makes me sick to my stomach. They have no clue. They feel bad for those "poor little babies," and tell me it "takes a special person" to play with sick babies all day. They ask me how I do it? Sometimes I want to scream and pull my hair out. I want to tell them the babies are easy. They don't understand. The tough one is the four year old who grabs the stethoscope around my neck and yells, "Rachel, I hate this. I don't feel good. I don't want to talk anymore," and falls back on the bed asleep. The tough one is the 19-year old who just started a cna program and had to drop out because his cancer is back. The tough one was the 14 year old who decided she was too tired to eat, and too tired to live, and she slowly wasted away until her heart gave out and she finally could rest in peace. The tough one is the one I knew in high school.

Perhaps the most taunting side effect of chemotherapy is secondary tumors. Hey, you just endured possibly the most difficult thing one could in life - perpetual nausea, exhaustion, repeated infections, surgeries, loss of a social support who "don't know what to say" - all to endure the stress of follow up scans and living 6 months at a time in hopes for continued remission. They are often afraid to plan for the future, because who knows what could happen? Why go to college? Why finish high school? And when the bad news comes, will they choose treatment, knowing its cost?

The hardest times as a nurse are not when my patients die. Sometimes, death feels right. Like somehow my patients who have died - and none have been older than me - have lived their lives fully and completed what they wished before the end. Their journey is done, and they can live forever with Jesus free from worry. No, the most difficult part is watching them suffer, watching them waste away, watching them lose hope, watching the end come.

The devil comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10.

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