People Watching

So here we go again. As I sit in the cancer center waiting room, it strikes me how similar it is to an airport. First you check in, and then they take your blood. If your lab work comes back okay, they give you a ticket to ride, literally. They give you a slip of paper with your chemo orders on it that you pass to a nurse, then you sit in a waiting room and wait for a chair to open up in the infusion room. Not much to do except read House Beautiful, glance up at Price is Right and people watch...unless you are Ken, who kills his time in the puzzle corner. Then they call your name and you are assigned a recliner and plugged in for the long ride.

I am going to describe my fellow cancer patients to you. In order to protect their privacy, I'll speak in stereotypes. It is the same sort of crowd every time.

There are the old married couples. One member of the team is the cancer patient and the other is the loud, busy advocate- making sure their sweet honey bunny has plenty of warm blankets and their favorite starlight mints and a word search book. They discuss common everyday matters. Did you remember to turn off the coffee maker? So and so called and will meet us at Perkins for lunch. I love these folks. They always bless my heart and ask about my kids.

There are the single ladies. Characteristically, these ladies are also the I-embrace-the-pink-ribbon types. We are talking head to toe pink- pink shirts, pink hats, "Save the ta-ta's" buttons, pink bags. They sort of remind me of Gator fans only they are Team Komen all the time. They talk loud on their cell phones and chat up the social worker. God bless them, too, because they hand knit me pink hats right there on the spot and make me spell my full name so they can add me to their church prayer list. I imagine they lead their ladies auxiliary group, too, given the courage they have to wear their cancer like that.

Occasionally, there are the young hipsters with cancer. They spend the entire time texting or whatev on their cell phones. They wear flip flops and are quiet and get every look of sympathy in the room. I particularly appreciate one young guy last week who was next to me. Because he wore flip flops, I was able to study his feet and noticed he, too, had dark areas on his toe knuckles. (I am not sure "toe knuckles" is the correct terminology.) Here I was thinking I just had really dirty feet or spending too much time in cheap Payless shoes. Turns out, toe ridges are a side effect of chemo. Thanks, random Abercrombie guy.

The saddest cases are the fight-for-my-right to party types. I see a lot of super skinny people denied chemo because their blood counts aren't good or something. Contrary to what you might think, most people fight hard to get the chemo anyway. One, the crap is saving your life and two, you are already there and mentally ready to go. They had to already stick you to get the blood work. Who wants to come back and do it all again tomorrow? Uh...nobody. One time this guy got all plugged in and quickly asked for a coke and some Cheetos. He was scarfing those delicious orange snacks down when the nurse returned and snatched them away, telling him that his blood sugar was sky high. Poor guy was begging for that damn coke, just like I've heard some beg for the chemo. Most of the time, when it gets confrontational like that, the nurses get the doctor. The oncologist will chew your butt right out in front of everybody. If you keep at it though, they'll give you your chemo, Cheetos, coke, anyway. We own these bodies after all. Hell, I think if you demanded it enough, those nurses would bring you a Bud Light and a cigarette.

What do we all have in common? Well, besides cancer. Just like a long flight, all us patients got our eyes on the bathroom. You have to stake out the bathroom right away. There are two restrooms for like thirty people. We are all hooked up to fluids, we all get our soda and snack, and we are all here for a couple of hours at least. It takes a lot of planning. You have to get the nurse to unplug your iv, and then you have to be ready to roll your drugs and it's stand through very crowded recliners and bags and people to the bathroom...and you have to beat your competitors. Otherwise, you could be waiting fifteen more minutes. Sometimes people get stuck in there for whatever reason. Oh the drama.

Today, I am among another stereotype- the cancer patients with their iPads. All of us in the "green" group today are busy touching away on our screens. We got one sleeper in our group, today. (I call them sleepers...they are the ones that get Benadryl in their iv). I opted out of Benadryl today, too much going on in the infusion room...plus it slows down my fast break to the bathroom.

We are one motley crew here. Bless our hearts.