Some twenty years ago, those of us in our community who were primarily involved in the care of cancer patients realized that we needed a specific unit in our hospital that was dedicated to the care of cancer patients, for the simple reason that we wanted to do a better job providing for these patients. Our initial pursuit of that goal yielded an offer from the Arthur James, the cancer hospital that was a part of Ohio State University, to develop a partnership that would provide excellent local care, using the expertise that they had developed. Many of our medical staff expressed doubt that this was the right thing to do, leading to several years of discussion. After our two major hospitals merged in 1996, to create a single health care institution, Genesis Health Care, we were able to finally get the support that we needed. A collaborative agreement was signed, and an unused floor of our largest hospital was remodeled to create a cancer unit. The colors, design and organization of that unit followed the direction of the James, and we had access to their training programs.
While pleased to have accomplished this step forward in our care of cancer patients, we soon realized that this was not nearly enough. What we saw was that patients came to us after having been bounced from diagnostic studies to surgeons, to radiotherapists, to oncologists, and others in between, before their definitive therapy had been decided. This often caused a delay of a month or more before they finally received the treatment that they needed. We believed that what we now needed, even more clearly, was a cancer center, where all modalities of treatment could be gathered at one site. We wanted patients to be able to come to one place to see their surgeon, radiologist, radiotherapist, oncologist, have clinic evaluation, biopsies and get whatever else was needed. We wanted to provide a single health care entity that would give these patients, in great need, started on whatever treatment was required within a few days or weeks.
Our hospital administration lent a supportive ear. Several of us were sent on fact finding trips to cancer centers around Ohio and other states, to see how they had been organized, and to determine those features that we wanted in our cancer center. Some were attached to the major hospital, and many others were completely separate. Some had Hospice facilities next door, and others did not. Some had valet service for visitors, some had healing gardens, and some had elaborate foyers. Some had bricks laid in walkways designating the primary contributors toward that edifice. Another had a gold brick wall which had engraved on those bricks the names of donors to their cause. Another wanted to have a sculptured tree in the lobby, on which they could hang leaves containing the names of their patients. Another had quilts, each panel of each quilt containing the names of patients they had treated. One had a healing waterfall in the lobby, which was separately enclosed for environmental control. In spite of their many differences, however, they all had one common goal: provide the most efficient and loving care we can for our cancer patients.
And then nothing happened for years. Our administration was too involved trying to stay solvent while running two large hospitals in one relatively small town, in face of shrinking health care dollars. They were too involved in trying to determine how to combine these two hospitals and all the services they provided into one entity that would consolidate those services into one or the other site. The debates were hot and heavy. Not only was the system of two duplicate hospitals inefficient, but we were losing patient referrals as these debate doldrums continued. It took a new administration to look carefully at all the options, bite the bullet, and decide how that consolidation should be made, take the effort to add multiple new services, sell subsidiary nursing homes, recruit new physicians to man those additional services, and make the commitment to finance a new hospital addition that would finally allow all major services to be under one roof. To our great relief and pleasure, those plans have also included building a new cancer center which will sit adjacent to the new hospital, to be completed by 2015.
Those decisions I found most gratifying, and exciting. I knew immediately that I wanted to contribute something toward a cancer center that had been our dream for over fifteen years. Yet I was no longer in a position to be a mover and a shaker. After retiring from surgery in 2004, I had continued to work providing primary health care. I had become impressed with the number of people in our community who had Medicare, Medicaid, or who were uninsured, and who were turned away by many other providers. We made a point of providing care, in our particular office, for those patients that could not find health care elsewhere. That was not easy. I had to subsidize that practice heavily, and take no salary myself for several years, until the Muskingum Valley Health Centers, an FQHC entity, was started in our community. Our goals and patient clientele were equal to those of MVHC. We were able to merge all our resources and personnel with that entity. Now I was able to provide medical care for those who had been denied by others, and also do so without financial loss.
This financial stability also enabled me to extend further my support for this new cancer center, and enhance this long term dream. How to do so was almost an automatic decision. I had been for years tremendously impressed with the work of Alan Cottrill, a sculptor who works in our community, but who is known world -wide for the excellence of his artistry. I knew immediately that I wanted to contribute a sculpture, made by Alan Cottrill, for the new cancer center. I first talked to our Genesis Cancer Director, and told her what I wanted to do. She asked me to pursue that effort. On December 1, 2011, I went to talk to Alan at his studio on Sixth Street. I told him that I wanted to contribute a sculpture for the new cancer center that Genesis was planning, and that I wanted it to, in some symbolic form, show that this was a place that was dedicated to compassion, hope and healing. I also told him that I had no idea how this sculpture should be designed, but that I would seek ideas from all those involved, until we decided on something that we could present to him. I told him that people come to us having just received some of the worst news of their lives. They are in sorrow, some are in pain, and all have multiple fears. They are afraid they will become misshapen and ugly, are afraid they will lose their loved ones, will lose everything they have worked for all their lives, will have great pain, and are afraid they will lose their own lives, and do not know where to turn. They are desperately in need of comfort, support, hope and direction. Alan paused for a minute, and then the following conversation followed:
Alan said, “I think you are missing something. That is not where these patients start. What I am thinking of is Dante’s Inferno, or purgatory, or something like that. That is where they start, before they reach the stages of compassion, hope and healing.”
After thinking about this for a moment, I replied, “I think you are right. I have been sugar- coating this situation for these patients. They come to us in fear and sorrow, and it is up to us to then provide them with the means to overcome that grief and achieve a normal life again.”
“Please don’t start by developing your own design. This is what I live for. I find this exciting, and your timing could not be better. I would be anxious to do this project. This is what I do for a living. Let me show you some of the other work that I have done.”
Then Alan led me on a private tour of his gallery. We went upstairs, where he showed me sculptures that had won international competition, and some, of great size, that had not won international completion. He showed me his completed and in place statues of Jesse Owens and John Daly, and some remarkable sculptures using vines and wings. He admitted that these were favorite forms he chose to express concepts and ideas. I was deeply impressed with the magnificent works he had created. Then we went back downstairs. Alan walked over to his cluttered and dusty desk, but suddenly stopped in mid-step before he got to his desk. He stared off into space, and his arms began to weave slowly, out and up, in a dazed trance. His mouth opened slowly to speak, opened and closed, opened and closed, but no words came out. For that space of about three minutes, he was in his God’s hands, captured by his moment of creation. I watched with complete attention, knowing that I was witnessing the birth of something very special. Alan finally turned to me and spoke, “I can see what it is. Let me put it in form and let me show you what I see.”
I told Alan I had been in my own trance, had seen the wheels moving in his head, and had personally witnessed this moment of creation. I told him that I would try to meet with him again in a week or so, and bring the Genesis CancerProgram director with me to see what vision he had created. I was not at all prepared to get a call from him the next day. “Are you in town; are you doing anything? I have something I want to show you.”
“Alan, I am not only in town, but will be there in fifteen minutes.”
When I walked into his studio, he said not a word, but nodded toward a small clay maquette which stood on a pedestal next to his small desk. What I saw took my breath away. I saw a base which contained masks of sorrowful faces, encased in vines that entangled and imprisoned them. Rising out, in the midst of this morass, was a guiding hand which pointed upward, showing the way out of this swampy enclosure. Surrounding these entangled vines and sad faces were six wings, which curved upwards, joining at the top. From their juncture, at the center, rose a stream which supported a dove in flight. It was striking. I saw our patients come to us suffering. I saw the prison of fears that entangled them. I saw that there was a guide to lead them out of that prison. I immediately thought of these wings as wings of healing, representing Diagnostic acumen, Surgery, Radiation, Chemotherapy, Freedom from pain and Loving Care, which, when all gathered together at the top, provided a base for a new beginning, a new life, and healing. I immediately thought that this sculpture design eloquently captured the goals of this proposed cancer center, to provide care, comfort and healing for those afflicted. I found it an absolutely perfect expression of the ideas Alan Cottrill and I had discussed.
At that point I planned to do whatever I could to help this sculpture come to reality. I wanted it to be in a place that said to all who entered that site, and all those person’s relatives: “We will take care of you.”