Where Hopes Wait

August 8, 2026

The television was on when I walked into the waiting room yeaterday, but I couldn’t tell you what was playing. No one was really watching it anyway. Every few minutes, the quiet was interrupted by a nurse opening the door and calling another name. The room would briefly come to life as someone stood, gathered their things, and disappeared down the hallway before settling back into its familiar rhythm.

I’ve come to know that rhythm well.

As I waited for another round of labs, I looked around the room. Young adults whose lives should still feel wide open. Parents balancing hope with exhaustion. Grandparents who have probably spent decades taking care of everyone else and now find themselves needing someone to care for them.

Cancer doesn’t give a damn about your demographics. It doesn’t care how old you are, where you were born, what uniform you’ve worn, or what plans you’ve made for next year. It is completely indifferent.

Watching the room, I couldn’t help but think about where I was exactly one year ago.

Last August, I wasn’t waiting for routine blood work. I was waiting for answers.

Three different chemotherapy regimens had failed me. Each one started with cautious optimism. Each one ended with another difficult conversation.

The word my doctors used was refractory. It’s a word oncologists use every day. To me, it became a word that carried more weight than almost any other in the English language. It meant the cancer wasn’t responding.

Looking back, we finally understand why.

Everyone believed we were treating my classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma. What none of us knew was that I was also fighting T-cell/histiocyte-rich large B-cell lymphoma (THRLBCL), an extraordinarily rare lymphoma that wasn’t responding to the same treatment. We were fighting one enemy while another quietly continued its work behind the scenes.

That realization didn’t come overnight.

It came after months of infusions, side effects, fatigue, blood work, and wondering why nothing seemed to be working.

By August, the goal had changed. Instead of defeating the cancer, we were simply trying to keep me healthy enough for whatever came next.

Virginia Cancer Specialists became almost a second home. I knew where to park. I knew the faces at the front desk. I knew the routine before anyone had to explain it. Hydration. Blood work. Medications. Then another conversation about what options might still exist.

Those appointments weren’t about celebrating progress.

They were about buying time.

Then my oncologist made a suggestion that changed everything.

“You should start looking at experimental treatments.”

That sentence became my next mission.

Maria and I started making phone calls.

One after another.

Cancer centers across the country.

More than ten of them.

Every physician, every researcher, every coordinator treated us with kindness, even when the answer was no.

Some conversations carried another kind of disappointment. Several promising clinical trials had been delayed or canceled because funding had disappeared. Before cancer, I understood research in the abstract. Now I could picture the empty chair where a patient might have been sitting if that study had continued.

Then Memorial Sloan Kettering called.

We packed for what we thought would be a quick overnight trip. Maria laughed because, despite my insistence that we’d barely be there, she packed enough clothes for several days anyway. She knows me well. Whenever I say we’ll only need one night, life has a way of proving me wrong.

One day quietly became almost a week.

There were scans.

Biopsies.

Enough blood drawn that I joked they were trying to see if I had any left.

There were meetings with physicians, researchers, and specialists. Every answer seemed to uncover another question.

Then came the answer that changed everything.

I wasn’t fighting one cancer.

I was fighting two.

Oddly enough, that news brought relief.

Not because it was good news. It certainly wasn’t.

But because, for the first time in months, the pieces finally fit together. The treatments hadn’t failed because anyone had overlooked something obvious. We had been fighting one disease while another was quietly changing the battlefield.

Every now and then life gives you one of those Lose Yourself moments. A moment where fear and opportunity are standing in the same doorway. You don’t know what’s waiting on the other side. You only know you’ll regret never walking through it.

New York became that doorway for me.

The clinical trial wasn’t a guarantee.

It wasn’t even a promise.

It was simply another chance.

Sometimes that’s enough.

Looking back now, I can admit something I probably couldn’t have said then.

I was scared.

Not the kind of fear that makes for dramatic movie scenes.

The quiet kind.

The kind that wakes you up in the middle of the night wondering if you’ll see another Christmas. Wondering if you’ll watch your boys continue becoming the men you already know they’re capable of becoming. Wondering if you’ll grow old sitting on the porch with Maria, arguing over whose turn it is to make coffee.

Cancer has a way of shrinking your world. The calendar that once stretched years into the future suddenly becomes measured in appointments, scans, medications, and lab results.

I’ve often said cancer is a thief.

It steals your strength.

It steals your independence.

It steals your certainty.

But I think its greatest target is hope.

Hope is what gets you back into the infusion chair.

Hope is what makes you answer the phone when your doctor’s office calls.

Hope is what convinces you to keep taking the next step, even when you can’t see where the path leads.

Hope isn’t pretending everything will be okay.

It’s deciding that today is still worth living, regardless of what tomorrow brings.

I’ve also learned another truth.

Not everyone gets the opportunities I received.

Some cancers are found too late.

Some treatments simply don’t exist.

Some families spend as much time worrying about hotel rooms, gas money, and missed paychecks as they do about blood counts.

Cancer is cruel enough.

It shouldn’t also bankrupt hope.

I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate. I found outstanding physicians. I was able to travel to New York. I was accepted into an experimental clinical trial because countless patients before me chose to participate in research.

I’m simply trying to do the same for someone I’ll never meet.

As someone who served in the Army, I’ve never been comfortable using words like battle and war casually. Those words belong to people who may never come home.

Cancer is different.

Here, sacrifice is real.

Families are forever changed.

Lives are forever changed.

Some are lost.

This truly is a battle because every day asks you the same question.

Will you keep going?

Today, my scans remain stable.

Every three weeks I still make the trip to New York.

I still live with uncertainty.

But uncertainty doesn’t feel the same as it did a year ago.

As I finish writing this, another nurse opens the waiting room door.

Another name is called.

Someone smiles nervously at the person beside them before disappearing down the hallway.

Soon, someone will call mine.

Just another set of labs.

Just another appointment.

A year ago, I walked into this building wondering if there would be another option.

Today, I walk in carrying something far more valuable than certainty.

I carry hope and or today...

That’s enough.