DOCS & glass houses

If you don’t like HGTV, don’t get Cancer. I mean, even if you thoroughly enjoy their programming I would strongly advise you don’t get Cancer. But, if find yourself joining The Club, get your hardhat ready because what I gather from my experiences across four cancer centers in three different states is that they all play HGTV in the waiting room. 

Now, you might get a wily peer who builds up the hutzpah to change the channel, but 90% of the time most of us are too fixated on trying to not throw up to worry about it. So there we sit, in an open room being told how a Rust Enthusiast and an Eraser Entrepreneur fresh out of college can afford a $500,000 demolition. Their enthusiastic “Ahhs” mixed with the inevitable distaste in the primer being used in their bathroom fill the vacuum of silence that falls across the berber carpeting of our holding pen. 

The only reprieve from the demolition sounds droning in the background are the yells from the Check-in Desk for “Johnson…Desk 2!” Everyone’s eyes flick up from whatever they are doing to occupy their brains from realizing they shouldn’t have had the second Saltine in the car to see which unsuspecting victim is Johnson. Ahhh…not who I was thinking. Truthfully, Johnson’s caregiver looks a bit worse for wear than he does so kudos to Johnson…Keeping it TOIGHT.

But as we sit, waiting to get called forward to receive another week of flimsy security or orders for more scans, HGTV shines down on us. It serves as a reminder of how the other half lives. A reminder of how one day we too can join them, if our treatment plans don’t fail us and our medical bills aren’t too high of an impediment for a mortgage. 

When my Cancer treatment became a full-time job, and the Hospital quickly became my office, I thought the TV programming was a joke. I would laugh as I went from waiting room to waiting room, HGTV waiting for me with each turn of the hall. 

It’s one of those choice moments were you start laughing and soon realize that you’re the joke. Everyone else is up to speed on this standard TV-faire, but your naiveness and ignorance is what is laughable. HGTV was there long before you arrived.  

Let’s do some quick math… 

Based on some rough Googling, there are 6,090 hospitals/medial centers in the US. Lets say there is an average of 10 waiting areas in any given hospital (we’re lowballing it here...). That is 60,900 waiting rooms in the US. And let’s say 75% of those have TVs. That’s 45,675 TVs, all inevitably tuned to HGTV...one of the most politically neutral television stations available.

And let’s say those TVs run 12-hrs a day. That’s 548,100 hours of HGTV being watched across the nation’s medical centers in one day. 62.5 years of HGTV is being watched in a single day. (Full disclosure, this is lingering-chemo-brain math with a very limited research stipend…) Did I just rock your world? 

Probably not, but it is something to think about isn’t it? 

If Cancer patients weren’t at a total risk of infection, our cognitive function wasn’t semi-impaired from treatment, and we weren’t experiencing lung-failure or muscle-atrophy from the intense drugs being pumped through us, we would make one hell of a home renovation team from the equal amounts of HGTV being pumped into us from the waiting rooms.

The waiting rooms where we sit, offering up silent prayers for our Doctors to tell us we are “Unremarkable.” In return, the communal vestibule in which we find ourselves offers us flannel, hardhats, and a bandaid of “Normalcy” that frays at the edges.  

At first I thought Food Network was another neutral station that could add some variety to the television screens keeping us company day after day. But once you hit round one of chemo, you quickly realize that you are not some programming savant whose purpose in life is to revolutionize hospital waiting-room TV offerings. 

Even my mom suggesting something other than buttered noodles or ramen most days resulted in a cringe and an aggressive head shake. A futile effort in attempting to keep down whatever meager amounts of sustenance remained in my stomach.

So, maybe Guy Fieri and his trashcan chips should sit this one out.

What I am curious about though, beyond how all Hospitals appear to be on the same cable and shitty wifi-plan, is who determined a network dedicated to rebuilding a rotting foundation was the entertainment of choice for a group of people who are attempting to do the same with their bodies? Fundamentally there is some component of our cellular structure that has decided to pilfer our natural foundations. Much like these homes, we too are seeking to be saved. Salvaged in some way. Except ours is a matter of Life and Death. Our valuation is rooted in life-expectancies and in breaths versus real-estate appraisals and market appreciation. 

It is interesting how a network whose slogan is “Home starts here,” is played on loop in an institution whose slogan could arguably be “Life starts here.” To the average person who watches HGTV, the personalities and designs may represent the hope of finding their own little corner of the world to call their own. For me, it is a reminder of the impending stress of waiting for the results of bloodwork, scans, or biopsies. Waiting for the hammer to fall again, shattering this slow-growing illusion that I may actually be ok. 

It annoyed me, seeing these smiling people choosing to buy homes, while I sat choosing what chemo plan I needed to try next. These couples were dealing with a hiccup in construction, while I was dealing with a hiccup in my immune system. The stakes seemed drastically different.

I could barely walk into an appointment without someone holding me up. A twisted marionette, broken and tangled in the various IV tubes leading to my chest. While on the screens, Foremen stood swinging hammers and breathing in dust, puppet-masters of demolition.

These families were planning their dream home. I was just dreaming of going home, tired from a day of sitting in a waiting room only to be poked and prodded and asked if it burned when I peed. (P.S. It shouldn’t…so if it does, go get that checked out.) 

At first HGTV seemed innocuous. Then it taunted me. Now, it’s a bit like a familiar friend. Again a sign that my appointments are fewer and farther between. A sign that my immune system hasn’t given up on me yet. Allowing me to take it for a spin a little bit longer before it throws us another curveball. 

HGTV is a part of my medical soundtrack. The tinny sound of the voices as they radiate from the screens perched in the corners of the room. The way the sound waves hollow out as they hit the carpeting, crushed by the shuffling feet of whatever fellow stem-cell patient is finding their seat in the waiting room. Finding the seat from which they will offer up their silent prayers. Please tell me I am “Unremarkable”…

Now as I leave my appointments, I often look up one more time as I pass the TV, soaking in whatever last bits of open-floorpan knowledge I can absorb before I’m back in a few months time. 

I am “Unremarkable.” I am safe for now.