“Here Are Your Drugs”

The words were like music to my ears as the hospital pharmacist handed over a small brown paper bag in the waiting room of the Oncology Department at Auckland Hospital. A wave of relief swept over me as I took possession of the precious potential life-saving pills.

I finally had them.

I clutched them tightly as I walked to the car thinking about the transaction that had just taken place in the hospital. I could have been a drug addict participating in an illicit deal – a container of pills worth thousands of dollars concealed in a brown paper bag being handed over under hushed conversation in a quiet corridor. The only thing missing was the cash payment – but I imagine my years of paying taxes probably contributed enough to the health system to pay for the drugs.

The only catch – I had to come back to the hospital every 3 weeks to pick up a new batch of pills (as well as for a quick checkup on my progress) – a relatively small price to pay to have a piece of a brand new scientific breakthrough in the area of cancer treatment in my hot little hands.

When I left the Oncology department, I saw a lady standing outside clutching a brown paper bag identical to mine. I asked her if she had also received ‘the goods’. She had. Was this her first round? It was. We were instant drug-buddies.

She told me she had been battling melanoma for 4 years – longer than the ‘wonder drug’ had been in existence. She had gone through traditional DTIC-based chemotherapy and was fortunate enough to go into remission for 14 months.

But it had come back. And it did not respond to chemo this time. She was as happy as I was to be clutching the Brown Paper Bag of Hope. 

Sometimes people need hope they can hold onto. When the oncologist let slip with the ‘I’ word – Incurable – while talking about stage-4 metastatic melanoma during my visit, he was pronouncing a expectation of a negative outcome.

In the Bible, God says, “…the plans I have for you…are for good not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”*

In the eyes of the oncologist, I had been  ’doomed’ by my disease. I assured him I wasn’t going anywhere and my expectation was for a full recovery.

‘Til next time,
David

*Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)