“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” — Proverbs 17:22
There is a plastic pig in the cancer center.
It sits at the front of one of the labs. One of the techs told me to squeeze it. So I did. It oinks. A real, loud, ridiculous oink.
She told me that people come by just to squeeze the pig, even if they have no appointment in that room. They detour from wherever they are headed, squeeze the pig, and keep walking.
I have been thinking about that pig ever since.
The Appointment
Yesterday was my oncology appointment — the big one where we go over everything and plan what comes next. It was a weird day. Not bad. Just weird. The kind of weird that happens when something that was once the scariest place in your world starts to feel… familiar.
I am recognizing staff now. They are recognizing me. When did that happen? When did a cancer center become a place I know how to navigate?
The news was good. My oncologist is confident. The pathology came back strong — clean lymph nodes, barely any remaining cancer cells dividing. What was once a large, aggressive tumor is now barely a trace. There is more treatment ahead, but he is not worried. And for the first time in a long time, I let myself not worry either.
I came in with a long list of questions. He told his staff to pay attention and learn. When your life depends on it, you do the reading.
The Parking Lot
Walking out, we shared an elevator with a couple. You could tell they were processing something big. I was reading it as bad news.
Then in the parking lot, the woman hugged my doctor and said she was so relieved. I asked if she got good news. She said yes — she had been so worried she would have to do chemo again, but he told her she would not need it. I told her where I was in my process. We wished each other luck and went our separate ways.
Two strangers. Same building. Same doctor. Same fear. Both walking out with hope.
I am glad I got to see her relief. In the elevator, I thought I was watching someone get the worst news. Turns out I was watching someone carry the weight of not knowing, which looks exactly the same from the outside.
The parking lot was the exhale.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 4:6-7
That woman carried the weight of not knowing all the way through the building, into the elevator, and across the parking lot. From the outside, it looked like devastation. But inside, it was just the space between the question and the answer. We have all been in that space. The peace does not always come when the answer does. Sometimes it comes in the parking lot, in a hug, in a stranger saying, “I am glad for you.”
The Pig
So back to the pig.
I keep thinking about why people detour to squeeze it. In a cancer center, almost nothing is in your control. You do not pick your diagnosis. You do not pick your pathology results. You do not get to decide whether your blood counts are high enough for treatment this week. You show up and you take what comes.
But the pig? You can squeeze the pig. And it oinks. And for one second, you are a person laughing at a ridiculous plastic pig instead of a patient in a cancer center.
That is not nothing. That might be everything.
“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” — Proverbs 17:22
I used to think that verse was just about staying positive. Now I think it is about the pig. It is about the tiny, ridiculous, completely unnecessary moments of joy that God scatters into the hardest seasons of your life. Not to fix anything. Not to cure anything. Just to remind you that you are still you. That laughter still works. That joy does not need permission from your circumstances.
God does not always remove the storm. But sometimes He puts a plastic pig in the middle of it.
When Pigs Fly
Six months ago, if you had told me I would feel comfortable walking into a cancer center, that I would know the staff by name, that I would be a patient who impresses her oncologist with her questions, that I would find a plastic pig and have it become the highlight of my day — I would have said, “when pigs fly.”
Well. Here I am. Squeezing the pig.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” — James 1:2-4
I am not going to pretend that cancer has been a joy. But I will say this: I have found joy inside of it. In a pig that oinks. In a stranger’s relief. In a doctor who tells his staff to pay attention to a patient who did her homework. In the weird, holy comfort of a place that used to terrify me becoming a place I know by heart. It feels less like the Itchy Sweater.
If you are in a hard season right now, look for the pig. It will not be what you expect. It might be ridiculous. It might make you laugh when you thought you had forgotten how. But it is there. God is funny like that.
Squeeze it.
My Prayer
God, thank You for the ridiculous things. For plastic pigs in cancer centers and strangers in parking lots and moments of joy we did not see coming. You do not always calm the storm, but You scatter laughter into the middle of it — and that is its own kind of medicine. Give us cheerful hearts, even on the days when the crushing feels like it might win. Help us find the pig. And when we do, give us the courage to squeeze it. In Jesus’ name, I pray.
Niki McDowell is a Stage 3B triple-negative breast cancer survivor, a wife, a mom, and a woman who does her homework. She writes from somewhere between faith and the fight.
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