A Contest

Last year my husband asked me to take a trip just for myself. He was willing to send me to one of those spa places for a day, weekend or even a whole week. Imagine a whole week of pampering, great food, getting outdoors, horse backing riding, hiking…etc. It sounded wonderful. BUT… for some reason I really wanted to go to the annual ACRP meeting in Orlando, FL. I couldn’t even give you a good reason why. ACRP stands for Association of Clinical Research Professionals. The benefit  to attending the meeting is networking – but with cancer and treatment I am realistically aware that I will probably never be able to return to my job as a CRA.  Another reason is to obtain your education credits to continue with your certification. Since I wasn’t going to be continuing with this career, I had just renewed my certification status but really needed to just let it go. It’s expensive to maintain.

I did go to ACRP and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I didn’t learn a single thing about research, GCP’s, FDA regulations, or even about job opportunities. Instead it was 3 days of being led through interactions that could only have been orchestrated by God. Let’s start at the beginning of my trip and see if I can’t lead you through some of my experiences.

 

I get to my hotel which is connected to the convention center via sky walks but it still was over a mile walk for me to get to the section of the convention center which housed the ACRP meeting rooms.  Winter in the Midwest is not great for walking, an activity I really enjoyed. I had actually been praying for opportunities for me to get out and be a bit more active. Now I had at least over a two mile round trip walk to tackle each day and it was wonderful! I could take a shuttle but the walk to the center was so peaceful. The first day a black bird of some type joined me on my walk. Hoping from pole to pole and tree branch to tree branch with funny little squawks. I don’t know if it was the same bird throughout the walk but there always seemed to be a black bird on walks following along. This happened during every trek I made, and I made many. It was like having a friend at my side. Another odd thing about my walks was that the sun was never shining. It was always partly cloudy on those journeys. Having been used to the Midwest sunless winter days, bright sunshine would quickly set off horrible headaches. But each time I traveled through the walkaways, it was a beautiful day but the sun hid behind a cloud. Funny thing was, once I got to the meeting rooms, I could hear people throughout the day talking about how bright the sun was shining outside. It was like the sunshine dimmed just for me. These small things were enough for me to know that a high power was orchestrating my experiences. But that was not all God had planned for me.

The first day of meetings, I scanned the list to see which sessions I wanted to attend. The next session had a number of great topics but I choose “Are we exploiting the hope in cancer patients” – or something along that title. I don’t work on oncology trials, so why did I want to go? But I didn’t question it much and decided to just attend. The talk was good but they focused so much on how maybe some clinical trials or even research professionals could be exploiting cancer patient’s hopes. They are afraid that patients with cancer don’t understand that most cancer trials are not about finding the “miracle cure”.  Maybe patients are expecting too much from these trials. It bothered me that these professionals thought that patients weren’t educated enough or smart enough to make their own choice on whether to participate in trials. At the end of the talk after a few people went up to the microphones to ask questions or make comments, I did what I never thought I could do. I stood up, walked to the microphone, and patiently waiting for my turn to speak.  I don’t know entirely what I said. I introduced myself as a CRA and then introduced myself as a cancer patient.  I spoke on how you can’t take away the hope of cancer patients. We know the end point – we all know we are going to die. But hope is what we have. We have it when a doctor walks in the room, we have it when we take a new medication or even try some hyped up natural supplement.  It probably won’t work but we still hold on to the hope. If not for the cure, at least for more time.  I do remember shaking something awful as I spoke.  As I left the microphone people starting clapping and I saw people crying. I sat down at my seat and the people around me where sharing tissues. It was so surreal – I still can’t comprehend what I could have said to evoke such a reaction. I sat there in my seat as others came to the microphone. I was scared and shaking still. Then someone came up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder and a hand on my right arm which was really shaking. It was a comforting touch and was so appreciated. I turned to look at who was touching me and no one was there. Immediately, I knew it was God. It was like time stopped for a moment. The feeling was incredible. I felt so loved. I just sat in awe. After a few more minutes the session ended. A few people came over to me; something I said in my time at the microphone had touched a few people. I was so humbled. But it didn’t end - the moments with God continued. Throughout those three days, strangers would come up to me and ask it I was the one that got up at the session on cancer and hope. I would say yes and they would say things like – “I wish you were one of the speakers for that session”, “I wish we could have heard more from the cancer patients’ point of view” “you really make me look at my cancer trials in a new light”. And people would come up to me to tell about loved ones they lost to cancer. No one knew my name – they didn’t need to know it. It was just about a message that came from lips but written by God.

 

Before I left for the ACRP meeting, I was reading books and articles about people’s experiences with dying. I found such comfort in those stories. You hope there is something after you die. You pray there is – but I still had that little worry in my head because we didn’t have any hard facts. We just had to believe and have faith. On that first day at lunch I walked with my tray through the eating area which was set up with round tables throughout the room. Some tables were packed with people, others only had a few. I felt myself be pulled towards a table were a black lady was sitting by herself. I asked if I could join but sat with a few chairs between us to keep from invading any personal space. After all, it was only 2 of us at this table for 8. Somehow a conversation got started and she told me about how she talks to God and about a life changing event in her life. It was so heartwarming. At my next session, the lady that I sat next to told me about how she had died and what her experience was like. God was sending people to me to hear their stories and this continued consistently throughout the conference. I even ended up sitting next to someone at the bus that had just gone through breast cancer and heard her story of faith and perseverance. Maybe the first few times were a coincidence but this wasn’t a cancer meeting. It was meeting for research professionals and I was hearing these incredible stories that I didn’t ask to hear. They were just volunteered up to me. It was just amazing.

 

There were so many other “small” things that happened throughout my trip. I continued to let my ‘gut” take me to where I needed to go and I was blessed each time I listened. On day 2,  I chose to go to a large session with Charles Sabine  - a  war correspondent for NBC, speaking  on research.  At the time I didn’t even know who the speaker was but I sat in front of his podium. For the next hour, I was captivated by his personal story. I learned about Huntington disease and how this genetic disease runs in his family. Mr. Sabine spoke about how he was tested and he carried the gene for this deadly disease. He would more than likely die of this disease but he also knew how he would die and that was a terrifying thought. After his talk I immediately ran to the side of the stage. I had someone take our picture with my cell phone. Not the greatest pic ever taken but it means so much to me. The first thing I said to him was that I have cancer and I was probably going to die before him. He seemed taken back at first but then grabbed my hand and said – “Let’s have a contest, let’s see who can live the longest”. Just those words filled me with strength.  At this point, both of us are still winning.