CTCA, Tulsa

First stop on my trip with Dan was Tulsa, Oklahoma, home of one branch of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (see also Wikipedia ).

First shot is of the triumvirate of flags out front: U.S.A., Oklahoma, and CTCA. Then there are two shots of the front of the building. On the closer one you may be able to make out (though not clearly, unfortunately) a statue of a boy and his dog just under and to the right of the tree. That imagery is also the logo of the CTCA and you will find it on their building, flag, stationery, business cards, whatever.

       


Next, we come to the lobby. You will also note the entrance to the cafeteria just beyond the lobby. Food there was good, especially considering that the max price you paid was only $4!

Following check-in we had to take the elevator to the second floor where our room was located. I didn't take any pictures of the room, but it was essentially a very nice $40/night hotel room, NOT a hospital room. Along the way, beginning as we exit the elevators on the second floor, we pass by the library (really just a room with some bookcases and books freely available to anyone who wanted to read) which also had several PCs set up for anyone to use to access the web. Then bearing left down a corridor we pass by a general open area with more PCs for general web use, a large screen TV (ironically, not pictured), and some tables for jigsaw puzzles (you will note a couple working on one). Right next to that area is a pantry that also featured a pool table which Dan and I used for a while one afternoon (sometimes you didn't have quite enough room to get to a particular shot at a proper angle, but we weren't too fussy).

   

   


Some views of the ground floor common areas as seen from the second floor. I thought it was cool how in two of these shots they look like roads with dashed lines down the middle. That was merely a coincidental effect (completely unplanned by me) of sunlight shining through some high windows at just the proper time of day to create the dashed line pattern.

       


If you walked in through the front lobby and just kept walking to the rear you'd find yourself looking out at a garden with 6-foot penguin statue. I kind of wondered what that was all about, but didn't give it much thought. Later, when we made it out to explore the surrounding Tulsa streets I soon noticed a bunch of other similar penguin statues and knew something was up. When I got back to the hospital, I googled and found out that they were part of a project called "Penguins on Parade" and they were originally done a few years prior to raise funds (I'm not sure how) for the penguin habitat at the Tulsa zoo.

Also on the ground floor was a piano and occasionally someone would play. One evening I heard music and found one of the young valets playing. He was very good, though he seemed a little shy about someone taking his picture, but I assured him I was just taking some shots to show folks back home, nothing more.

   

   


There was also a gym. I took a shot of Dan walking on a treadmill. He was feeling pretty good then and was able to do a mile in 20 minutes. I suspect that most of the folks who ever use the gym are family members who came along as caregivers/companions.

In the waiting room of the "infusion area" was a map of the U.S. Patients could stick pins in to indicate where they had travelled from for their treatment at the center. Most pins clustered around the Tulsa area and got more dispersed the further away you got, but there were some pins even in Canada, despite the fact that there were other closer branches of the CTCA.

   


When we got the chance to venture out one evening, mainly to fill up the truck with gas for the next leg of the trip, we happened to go right by a place I'd seen advertised on a Tulsa map that had been provided in the room... Gardner's Used Books & Music. We went in and browsed for about a half hour till closing time. Just inside was a huge statue/figure of the Incredible Hulk. Dan posed as if he was challenging the Hulk. If you have $3000 laying around you don't know what to do with, you could buy the Hulk for your living room.