A Home Away from Home
Because the Internet is accessible to sweet mamas like you and also to people who might like to enter an unoccupied house uninvited, I have been quiet about where Ray and I have been since September 20. We left home early on the morning of September 20 . . .
. . . and drove to Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville for Ray’s first radiation treatment. We saw this well-fed little guy after the treatment, while we waited for one of the kind valet drivers to return from the parking garage with our car.
That afternoon we moved into Room 502 on the top floor of Hope Lodge, operated by the American Cancer Society. I made it homey with fall decorations provided by friends and our older daughter Bethany. I made a paper chain with 26 links and that night Ray clipped the first of 26 loops.
He had one down and 25 to go.
Yesterday we moved back home.
When we first met with Vanderbilt radiologists in August, they told us that because we live such a distance from Nashville, they could apply for us to stay at Hope Lodge during Ray’s treatment period. We were grateful to learn a few days before the treatments began that we had been accepted to stay there. What a blessing it was not to make the long drive to Nashville and back every weekday for the last five weeks.
As hard as it was for Ray to go through radiation therapy and as hard as it was to be away from home, we will always cherish this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend our days in community with others going through situations similar to ours. We gained new friends and precious memories.
The American Cancer Society operates 32 Hope Lodge facilities in U.S. cities. A Hope Lodge is a hotel with free accommodations for patients who are undergoing cancer treatment, who live at least 40 miles away from their treatment facility, and who have someone who can stay in the room with them as their primary caregiver.
Some at Hope Lodge are young; some are elderly. Some have comfortable financial situations; some have difficult financial struggles. Some were beginning their journeys with cancer; some had been in and out of treatment for years. Some stayed for only a few days; others had already been there for weeks. Every person had much in common. Each was either a cancer patient like Ray or a caregiver like I. They were sisters, brothers, friends, husbands and wives, mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, fathers and daughters.
Each patient and his or her caregiver shared a hotel room. Instead of looking out of our window onto a green pasture as we are used to, we looked out onto the city of Nashville.
The residents of each floor shared a laundry room with three dryers and three washing machines. The nighttime view of the downtown Nashville skyline from our laundry room was beautiful.
Our floor also had a large room with a computer, a small library, . . .
. . . and a corner chapel.
Two floors had beautifully furnished living rooms. Another had an exercise room, furnished by the Tennessee Titans football team. We could all use these community rooms. Just outside the dining room was a nice patio area.
All linens are supplied for guests. We simply had to launder them and keep our rooms clean with detergent and cleaning supplies provided. No money ever changed hands from guests to the lodge.
Our only financial responsibility was purchasing and preparing our own food. We each had our own spaces in one of the large refrigerators . . .
. . . and freezers . . .
and our own locked cabinet for non-perishables.
We ate our meals in the large dining room according to our own unique schedules. We prepared those meals in our choice of one of the eight kitchens, four at one end of the dining room and four at the other end.
We didn’t need to prepare every meal though. Many days kind volunteers brought meals for everyone.
In addition to all these blessings provided by the American Cancer Society, the Hope Lodge staff, and volunteers were the blessings of one another. The dining room and lobby rang with: “How are you feeling today?” “Are you going to get to go home this weekend?” “How is your husband this morning?” “What time is your appointment?” “Has anyone heard from Jim today? Did he get out of the hospital?”
And we heard even more precious words, like: “I am praying for you” and “I know God is with us.”
Bear one another’s burdens,
and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2