Why not Rome?

When we moved from Richmond, Virginia, to Rome, Georgia, we sent out email updates to family and friends telling them that we were going to work with WinShape Foundation, and that we would be living in Rome. Many of them wrote back and asked if we would have to learn Italian! For the past 40 years we have lived in many exotic places, so they assumed we meant Rome, Italy. We really enjoy living in Rome, Georgia. It is close enough to Atlanta and Chattanooga, but we can still live in a small town with good  colleges and great medical facilities. So, why would we come to Jacksonville, Florida, to seek medical treatment?

Yesterday I attended my first BOB meeting—that’s Brotherhood of the Balloon. It is a support group for prostate cancer patients to get together twice a month at the institute just to discuss challenges that they might be experiencing and to affirm one another during the treatment. The leader asked us (about 40 men) to hold up our hand if our urologist recommended proton therapy treatment for us. Only one hand went up. Not surprising when you think about it. Urologists are trained to do surgery. That is what they do for a living. We have a new cancer center in Rome, Georgia, and it has state of the art radiation equipment and skilled technicians. I could have stayed in Rome and had excellent radiation treatment. Why did I come to Jacksonville for my treatment?

We researched other options that would give me a better quality of life after the treatments, and that would have the least side effects. After a lot of prayer, talking with prostate cancer survivors, and our own research, we decided that proton therapy was the best treatment for me. There are only nine centers in the USA that offer proton therapy and the closest one was in Jacksonville. We also met several people who had been treated in the Jacksonville facility, and finally the Lord confirmed that was the place for me to be treated.

We have not been disappointed. Chip Pohl summed it up well when he said the staff at the University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute is so much like our team members at our Chick-fil-A restaurants that it is like getting cancer treatment at a Chick-fil-A! We are grateful for this opportunity to be here in Jacksonville for this treatment. Thank you, Lord.