A Hospital Versus My Hospital

I work at a hospital, but it's different from most. In most hospitals, breaks are braced and babies are born. Medications are given that make people feel better, and surgeries to remove things like tonsils and appendixes are routine and generally non-evasive. Patients are admitted with serious injuries and illnesses too, and sometimes those people die, but every day people are also born.

My hospital is different from those hospitals; mine is a cancer hospital. No one walks into this hospital after injuries related to game-winning slide into first place or a sunset motorcycle ride turned accident. Patients walk into the doors of this hospital because one morning in the shower they noticed a strange bump, or while walking their dog one night, they felt a sharp pain in a strange area. Then they come here to detect what has been undetected. Often the treatment itself makes them feel worse; it makes them weak, nauseous, bald. Non-essential organs are removed, but so are essential ones. Sometimes patients recover, but often times, their pain is simply managed, and their time expanded by a few extra months or years. No one is ever born here, but many come here and die.

It's a heavy place to go to work every day, but even inspite of all the bad news and harsh treatments, there is a shared hope of all patients who walk into all types of hospitals: a hope to heal. That's what hospitals are for, afterall.