I have thinning hair, spinal disk outpouchings,
brittling toenails, a few age spots (now that I'm qualified), a squeezy
prostate, a penchant for any curried dish, capricious semi-erections happening
way too soon for nostalgia, and a false sense of security about everything,
though I prefer to say a true sense of insecurity.
In short, I'm augmenting my diminishing gains, and
diminishing my augmented losses (my blog, my wordplay).
But, what I am NOT, standalone, is my illness. I'm a multifaceted organism boasting untold
sets of sub-facets, which is now hosting a serious illness.
Yes, if I were a newspaper, the front page story would
be “Nurse Humorist Names His Cancer ‘Rad Chemo’”, and I must now remember to always
also open it to the editorials, columns, classifieds and comics inside the rest
of me.
Right about here, it’s time for a truncated truth from
D. H Lawrence, lifted from his poem “What Is He?”
--Would you say a thrush was a professional flautist,
or just an amateur?
I'd say it was just a bird.
--And, I say he is just a man.
All right! You always did quibble.
* * * * *
Entering the chemotherapy infusion room:
A roundhouse array of center-facing comfy loungers,
each with a more utilitarian chair set alongside it for our riding
shotgun caregivers. Diane and I assumed our positions. We were greeted by
pleasant, deliberate and tuned-in nurses who welcomed us to "the family. "
I looked around at my new family members and they were sizing me up with
all obviousness, but sneakily sizing up my cancer and prognosis to hold against
their own. I’ve been a nurse a long time.
Humans do this.
I can also tell, after a so-far lifetime of providing
bedside care, when I'm being observed hiding in plain sight on low, open ground.
After a nurse made an unsuccessful attempt at
starting an IV, she said "Sorry, El, your veins are rolling." Ah!
Blaming the victim (and I confess to committing this sin at times in my career).
She said it tongue-in-cheek, but it still made me feel like a self-saboteur.
Her cohort stepped
in and assumed the vein reins, managing the insertion first try. Attempting to
smooth the waters, I tried to ease the suffering of unstickable nurse by
explaining that historically I'm a difficult venipuncture, probably worsened by some
dehydration of late, and not to fret over it. It’s the nurse in me, though I am
trying to let go and be a good patient. Really.
My chemo “family” is an eclectic bunch (I want to say
my pathological family, but I’m trying to avoid the macabre): some looked old,
some looked old and sick, some looked old and very sick, and some looked as if
they were ten years older or younger, they’d look the same.
I supposed we all looked self-absorbed. I tried not to use them as mirrors.
The med infusions were uneventful. The lunch was superb. Only one sidetrack: a curious recorded
discrepancy discovered occurring in my height over time, shorter AND taller, and it
was briefly a busied topic of staff confab because my chemo doses are partially
determined by that measure.
For all of us to move forward, it was acknowledged and
accepted that I’m somehow capable of alternately portraying The Attack of the Incredible
Shrinking and/or Amazing Colossal Man without ill effects.
* * * * *
Entering the radiation room.
Lots to talk about here, but these treatments will be daily
for the next six weeks, so I’ll keep it to one first memorable mention, with
much more to follow:
During my first radiation treatment, at my request,
they played The Allman Brothers. Far freakin’ out.
It was Rock-humbling and Roll-satisfying to hear “I’m not gonna let ‘em catch me, no, not
gonna let ‘em catch the Midnight rider” in true surround sound, as I
laid snugged inside my table mold like a flesh & bone kabob on a stationary spit, flashing back up ahead as my linear accelerator world lit up and hummed
and rotated around ME.
More as we go. Let’s ride!
El
