I hate them both.  With a passion.

Not because I am some hyper environmentalist nor am I on a green movement to stop the destruction of our planet’s forestation.  No, I hate them because of what they represent to me.

They are the very image of surgical and treatment centers.

This upcoming Saturday, September 5^th will be my wife’s 2 year cancerfreeversary.  Yes – we made up a term for it and yes – we celebrate it.  Over the course of the last 2.5 years, I have spent a lot of time in the waiting rooms of medical centers.

What the medical team won’t tell you when a loved one is diagnosed with any disease that involves long term care is the amount of exposure you are going to receive to Styrofoam cups and old magazines.  They won’t tell you that you are going to spend days in waiting rooms.  Waiting for diagnoses.  Waiting for consultations.  Waiting for treatments to complete.  Waiting for recovery.

Waiting.

Helplessly waiting.

Waiting where the only refreshment is either coffee or water – served in Styrofoam cups.

Waiting in rooms where there are old magazines everywhere.

For the loved one of someone going through something like cancer, you will wait a lot and it is the hardest part!!!  Yes, you will be a shoulder to cry on.  You will be a punching bag to work out aggressions.  You will be the encourager when they think they can’t keep going.  You will be a nursemaid as they recover from chemo/radiation/surgery.  You will be all of those things at once but in all of those times, you are doing something.  You can take action.

Once they go back with the medical professionals, you are left to just wait and pray.

Wait with a Styrofoam cup full of coffee and an old magazine to distract you.

I hate Styrofoam cups and old magazines.

But back to something more positive – celebrating the gift that is the cancerfreeversary.

This year we are celebrating by having what we hope to be the final procedure in her reconstruction journey.  In fact, they just rolled her back to administer the anesthesia and begin the procedure.  So I am sitting in yet another waiting room, with my cup of luke warm coffee in a Styrofoam Cup leafing through old magazines deciding between an issue of Seventeen from 2014 or Sports Illustrated from 4 months ago (at least it is featuring Ronda Rousey but with my passion for all things MMA, I guarantee there is nothing new in there for me).

I hate Styrofoam cups and old magazines but I am so thankful for another opportunity to be here.  I am so thankful for the wonderful health care professionals who provide them and for their dedication to both their patients and their family.

I am so thankful to be celebrating her cancerfreeversary