Cook: Searching for nirvana inside Erlanger's new children's oncology center

Saw the most beautiful thing Tuesday morning.

It was the third floor of Erlanger's T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital, the place for kids with leukemia.

Yes, it can be a painful place. And world-crash-terrifying.

Christian Bryant

But it's also beautiful.

Especially now.

"This whole area has been redone," said Dr. Jennifer Keates, pediatric oncologist.

Erlanger hosted a grand tour and ribbon-cutting on its newly renovated children's oncology and blood disorders center. Gone is whatever white-walled sterility once existed. Now the center is a feng shui, cancer-fighting blend of hope, warmth and science. It's the best of interior design met with the best of medicine. Southern Living should have been there. Sanjay Gupta, too.

Nine new patient rooms, with big windows, natural lighting and chairs you sink into. New bathrooms. Big beds with big bed frames. Anterooms. New televisions, for movies and games. Fridges, with common-area kitchen. Wood flooring, instead of boring hospital tiles. (If these were hotel rooms, you'd shell out $300 a night.)

They've painted the walls deep, loving colors. Blue. Green. Warm orange.

There are all the things you don't see, like the new air-flow circulation system, which helps control and prevent infection.

"It's a milestone," said Dr. Manoo Bhakta, who came to Erlanger in 1986 as its first pediatric oncologist. (Then, the cure rate for childhood cancer was 30 percent. Now it's 80 percent.)

The new center has the feel of something sacred, of what it looks like to design something that protects and honors children at their most courageous, and vulnerable.

My favorite part?

The original art hanging on the walls.

It was the talk of the tour.

"This looks so good," someone said.

"I love the colors," said another.

"The icing on the cake is a gift from the Christian Bryant Foundation," said Julie Taylor, chief development officer. "It's the art."

In 2011, Christian Bryant was a patient there, sick with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She was a high school runner, soon to be an engineering student at Georgia Tech. Even sick, she was full of life: decorating the center, joking with doctors (adopting a fake British accent, saying it was caused by her illness), collecting extra medical equipment for Third World countries.

David Cook

At the time, I was a teacher. Christian was my student.

"I trust that something positive is coming out of having leukemia," she wrote in her senior essay. "This may not be part of my plan, but it is part of God's plan."

Three years ago -- May 26, 2012 -- Christian died.

Following her death, her family -- dad Chris, mom Robyn, sister Bailey -- created the Christian Bryant Foundation, with the long-term goal of helping fund a new children's hospital. (Thursday night, Erlanger unveils its plans.) The foundation also provides financial support, and great stuff like iPad minis, to families of sick children.

"Christian loved art," said her mom.

A while ago, Robyn and Bailey (she's a rising junior at Girls Preparatory School) went to Dave and Pauli's Art Emporium in Dalton, Ga., to search for just the right art.

"I hope that while children are there, they have something to look at that is hopeful and meaningful," said Robyn.

The final judge was Bailey; she chose the 21 pieces. They're called "Bailey's Collection for Christian."

There's an oil portrait of a smiling, Wilbur-ish pig. Down the hall, five ballerinas in white-yellow tutus dance with red slippers and arms raised.

Outside room 316 -- Christian's old room -- there is a dreamy painting of a little girl reading a book while resting on the trunk of an elephant.

In the consultation room -- the place where doctors tell families the diagnosis -- there is a bright blue-yellow-green scene of this waving, majestic tree.

"A Joshua tree," someone said.

Inside the common-area kitchen, there's a stunning oil-on-wood image of a girl's face looking up at a blue-gray sky. You can't tell if the storm is coming, or has passed. The piece, painted by Laura Wilet, is Bailey's favorite.

"See how the right side of her face is darker, but the left side is brighter? It's like the sun is coming in," said Bailey.

We sat together, like you would in an art gallery, talking about grief and death and love and life. Before us on the wall, the girl in the painting kept searching for nirvana. For hope in the storm. For some good in a world of cancer.

Bailey thinks she'll find it.

"There's a bright future," Bailey said. "Even though the clouds behind her are dark."

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.