"Jesus take the wheel." -Things I don't want my doctor to say.

I’m at the hospital for infusion number 2. This is my 14th round of FOLFOX in total, but number 2 of this second go round. I’m starting to feel my arms get heavier, my thoughts get slower. Water is starting to taste like metal and a grey hue is overtaking my olive tones. In another hour I’ll be in my three day stupor. If you notice that my next few blogs have more than the usual amount of typos, just look in the mirror and realize that you’re grammar nazi-ing someone with cancer. Something is wrong with you.

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This is my second time at the new hospital. The first hospitals were teaching institutions, and this is a Catholic one. There is religious iconography everywhere. Crosses in each room. A giant statue of a floating Jesus next to the valet parking lot.

This might surprise some people, but I myself am a Catholic. Not a lapsed Catholic or a recovering one. I’m a card carrying member. I’m at church every Sunday. I pop in on a weekday from time to time. I’ve been to retreats at monasteries, I read religious books. I don’t believe that my way is the only way, but it is a way that works for me. It gives me a lens through which to view the world, to make sense of this life I’ve been given.

That being said…these images of Jesus at the hospital are kind of freaking me out.

I don’t know if I want my doctors believing in an afterlife. That if they don’t save me, there’s this magical place I get to go where the streets are gold and the ice cream is good for me.

I don’t want them thinking that death comes with a consolation prize, and that consolation prize is heaven. Because if it was, then why aren’t they treating me in the first place?

Doctors: Great news!

Me: Why are you all wearing party hats?

Doctors: Because you’re going to heaven earlier than expected! Yay!

There’s something to be said about having a doctor who is a stone cold atheist. Thinking that this life is all there is. That after this it’s nothing but dirt and worms and Hozier songs. “Jesus take the wheel” might be a good for finding a husband, but I don’t want the people in charge of my care listening to Carrie Underwood. I want them staying up all night reading medical journals and washing it down with Friedrich Nietzsche.

Maybe I should STFU, especially considering the entire ministry of Jesus was about healing sick people. And if I see my doctor in church on Sunday, I won’t freak out and ask him what he’s doing here. It’s fine that he believes in the maker, I guess.

As long as he's not anxious for me to meet him.