Aflac Cancer Center Tour

I know it’s been way to long, and I have a bunch of posts to catch up on, but today I wanted to share my thoughts on something I experienced today.

I have been working with Aflac for almost 9 years. I have been to our headquarters in Georgia 2 in the last 2 years, and I have heard of the Aflac Cancer Center many many times. Today was the first time I really realized what the Aflac Cancer Center did, and how important it is to so many families.

I might get some of this wrong, but here is the basic idea of what the Cancer center is. The Aflac Cancer Center is located within Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (www.choa.org). The cancer center focuses on treating and curing pediatric cancers and blood disorders. Tonight one of their doctors is being honored because they believe that he has found a cure for one common pediatric blood disorder. Not only does this hospital treat patients, they are also working to find cures for all childhood cancers, and the success rate is amazing.
I had been excited about this part of the trip, since I had been to our headquarters two times, and had not had a chance to visit the cancer center. I had worked with Diane Vaughn and Tyler Fletcher, who serve as Aflac’s main cancer center contacts recently at an auction to benefit the center. After the auction Tyler, Diane, and I worked to get a visit scheduled for this trip, which is a prize for contest winners in our state.

We got there late, and had some miscommunication on my part about parking, but when we finally got there we were treated like royalty. They had a catered lunch ready for our group of only 9 people! The Aflac Cancer center is supported so much by the Aflac Field Force, that they use these tours as a way to say thank you, even to our small group. During lunch Diane talked about the focus of the center, and a little bit of the background. It is amazing to hear her talk about the center, because you can here how much pride she has in the work that they are doing there. She said that the turnover rate at the center is very low, because people love their jobs and their opportunity to be a part of the great things the center is doing in the field of pediatric cancer.

After lunch, Tyler and Diane took us on a 90 minute tour of the center. The inpatient, outpatient, and research areas, and also talked to us about the bone marrow treatment area, which we were not able to visit due to the fragile condition of the patients immune systems. The center is decorated in bright colors, and makes you feel like you are not in a hospital at all. It was amazing to me how nice, and excited everyone at the center was. I can’t imagine dealing with the things that they deal with on a daily basis, and loving it as much as they do.
The thing that touched me the most was the little kids that were walking through the center, in their bright colored little hospital gowns. There were two little kids, who were maybe 4 years old, that I saw riding on a tricycle down the hall. Even though they were going to through something so painful for them, they still seemed happy. When I think of pediatric cancer I think of how sad it must be to see your child go through something like that, but no one in that hospital seemed sad.

The center works with the children and their families to treat the cancer, and also the emotional side of the cancer. They work with social workers to make sure that the children who have been away from school for too long are able to integrate back into school as seamlessly as possible, they have people who work with the kids to show them what is going to happen to them, and help the kids to communicate how they are feeling through age appropriate means. There is a school teacher on campus to make sure that the kids don’t get to behind in their school work. It would take me forever to explain all the little things they do, that make this place different than any other place I’ve ever heard of.

I know this has gotten long winded, and has probably been hard to follow, but I am just so excited that I had the opportunity to visit this amazing place, and to understand better how even though pediatric cancer is a scary thing, there are so many ways that this center is working to make finding a cure or seeking treatment that much better for the patients involved. If you ever get a chance to visit this Cancer center, or one like it, jump on it! I know my viewpoint has changed so much just through this two hour tour this afternoon. Thank God for the amazing people who work every day for the treatment and cure of all of these children who should never have to deal with half of what they do. These people are so much stronger than me, and need to be recognized for all they do.