I found myself sitting in the chemo unit of the Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Center on a Wednesday afternoon today with my dad sound asleep on my right and a beeping machine to my left. I was catching up on some basic history homework when I stood up, took my glasses off, and looked out the panel of windows behind me. My head was foggy.

I could see the vast health campus parking lot and the road turning into the campus with a few cars driving along it. The sky was gray and little sunshine was to be had. I noticed a man on a ladder decorating the towering Christmas tree that had sprouted out the middle of the entrance fountain. He was struggling to hang  one of the red balls on the top section of the tree.

I turned around to find a nurse checking dad’s vital signs. She looked up and smiled at me. Politely smiling back, I turned back to the windows. There was  a car pulling into a parking spot and a women got out, swung her purse over her shoulder, and walked under the overhang leading into the cancer center.

I wonder what she’s here for?

Oh, right, cancer. Maybe it’s her husband, or her sibling, or parent. Or maybe it’s her. I don’t know. What a sad fact that was.

I walked into the center today as the stranger with the cancer patient, nobody knew my name or how old I am or how I am doing. I was just a face to support the real priority, my dad, the patient. Nobody knew that women either, she may be on the edge, ready to crack. And no one would know.

Cancer makes people selfish. There’s a mentality that the patients health and keeping the family together are the only things that matter, and it has to be that way. Cancer is a fight for a life, there is no time to worry about that bitchy girl at school or how my hair looks. But there were probably a hundred different people in the same place I was, doing the same thing I was.

If just one person would reach out to another, would it make a difference? Would it be passed along? Could it save a life? A family? I cant answer this. Maybe that is why I started this blog, to touch someone, to make a difference. Or maybe I’m just a high school student with a little too much time on my hands.

I’m just a girl with a few unusual circumstances and I hope that means something to someone who needs to relate.

Tomorrow I am going to ask just one people how they are and if they need anything, because maybe they will.

Maybe I’ll offer them a pancake.