Ringing the Bell: Last Radiation Treatment

Cancer: For Whom The Bell Tolls

So I haven’t told you yet about the bell in the radiation oncology waiting room. It is there for your last radiation treatment. It’s a modest bell on the wall near the exit. I hardly noticed it until a patient came from the back area, and rang it jubilantly on his way out the sliding glass door.  When you hear the bell ring, that is the cue for everyone in the waiting area to clap in support. It’s hard not to smile when you hear the bell. It’s also impossible not to think about when you will be the cancer patient ringing the bell. The nurse advised that at least once or twice a day a patient rings the bell.
more cowbell
The older gentleman who rang the bell today called out, “Good luck to you all!” as he left the room of us cheering for him on the last radiation treatment he will hopefully ever have.
Of course I got fixated on something completely different. Why couldn’t they have made it a cowbell? A cowbell would have been spectacular! A little picture of Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken taped next to the bell even. The Cowbell: the workin’ man’s bell of choice. Take that, cancer!
 “WE NEED MORE COWBELL!”
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