Vanguard

Issue date: 3/24/08 Section: News

Eight-year-old Jacey Duke smiled in amazement as she scoped out the newly painted walls at the University of South Alabama's Outpatient Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Treatment Center.
Officials at USA held an open house to dedicate Cabana Row, designed by local artist Lynette Meyers, on March 5.
Meyers, of Ocean Springs, Miss., donated many hours of time and talents into transforming the once plain halls of the clinic center.
The halls and the 10 rooms are decorated with a brightly colored mural stretching across each patient's door.
Meyers drew a beach resort setting equipped with palm trees, boats, umbrellas, suns and fish to comfort children during their treatment at the hospital and allow these young patients solace and visual escape from their daily ailments.
"I like the stars," Duke said with a smile stretched farther than the width of the murals. "It's good that she [Meyers] came out and did this for me, and it's pretty to look at. One day, I'd like to paint this. I already know how to paint carriages and plants."
The flames of Meyers's desire to help the children of the center first ignited when Meyers herself walked through the doors of the center in 1999 as a mother of a child diagnosed with cancer.
"When I came through this with Meghan, we walked through the doors, and the clinics were very sterile," Meyers said. "I know what it is like to stand here. My true vision was to take children and give them something to embrace, hold them and make them feel comfortable."
Meyers was able to combine her passion for the arts and helping children into the murals, which took a full year to complete.
"I drew all my life," Meyers said. "This project evolved into what you see today. I hope that more people will completely take rooms and create new places. I hope that this will be something that catches on."
Dr. Felicia Wilson, who leads the USA division of pediatric oncology and hematology, lent many appreciative and kind words toward Meyers.
"She came for Halloween in 2005 dressed as a pirate to come and give candy to all the kids," Wilson said.
With this benevolent act, Wilson knew early on that Meyers is a person who cares and understands.
"She [Meyers] saw that the other hallway had a mural, but ours was on a low budget," Wilson said. "Meyers wouldn't take no for an answer. Her response was always to ask how children with cancer could not have a mural and to exclaim that they soon would."
Wilson also commented on the journey that a simple work of art has provided for everyone at the center.
"I watched her [Meyers] dramatic career in art, and it's been an awesome and amazing journey that I feel so honored to present," Wilson said. "This is to the children who go through painful times."

Meyers's murals, which honor the memory of her daughter in each depiction, also help brighten children like Meghan who are going through similar situations.

Danielle Lee, a South Alabama alumni who spent some time at the treatment clinic during her youth, feels a true connection to the murals.

"It is all so phenomenal. I was just talking to the nurses about back then when the rooms looked so bare," Lee said. "In this place, you have a lot to be sad about here, and these happy drawings just brighten your day."

To recognize Meyers, doctors at the pediatric specialty clinic gave her a picture of herself titled "A Healing Painter."

The Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Center provides care for children in Alabama, coastal Mississippi and the Florida panhandle who are diagnosed with hematological conditions and childhood cancers.

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