a fire alarm and a 'minor miracle'

A few minutes after they gave me my first chemo injection mid-Tuesday morning, the fire alarm goes off. none of the patients believe it's for real, but all the nurses start freaking out, telling everyone it's serious and we've all got to get out of the building... and into the 100 degree heat outside. the nurse unplugs me from my machine, as she does everyone else in my infusion pod, and we make our way through the door. the alarm causes my ears to throb. too much live rock n' roll,i guess. I'm trying to figure how to find my dad and uncle,who are in the lobby somewhere and of course my mom is helping every confused patient she comes across, which is nearly every elderly citizen in the cancer ward.
we make our way outside and people don't know where to go -- some old dude wanders over to the closest shaded bus stop, others hang out in the patio outside the clinic. eventually we're all rounded up in the parking lot, in the sun.
needless to say, people are not happy. i keep hearing complaints about the clinic running out of wheel chairs for its incapacitated patients.that's messed up.
out in the parking lot, i spot my oncologist, Dr. Fred Ahmann. I wander over to him and ask him if this is part of my chemo. He giggles a bit and wonders what happened. Ahmann said in real fire situation, the trucks would already be outside. but there were none. he seemed to think some inspectors who were inside the building tripped the alarm on purpose. later my mom here's a rumor that a microwave caught fire or something. who knows? anyway, Dr. Ahmann asks how things went Monday. I said i was doing alright; just a little tired. "that's a minor miracle," he responds and proceeds to tell me that less than fifteen years ago, the drug prescribed for each treatment, cisPlatin, is so hard on patients they almost considered dropping it altogether. "We had to cheer lead for our patients to keep taking it," he said. Only recently, by his memory, did they begin prescribing appropriate drugs that kept patients from betting sick. so it's good to hear I'm taking it well, he said.
with the fire alarm shut off and it seemingly safe to re-enter the building, we parted ways and I returned to my pod to continue treatment.