Tuesday's Child

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Tuesday's Child

"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."

Charlotte to Wilbur, "Charlotte's Web" by EB White

I had a rather crappy morning.

First of all, it was a Tuesday.

And it was pouring rain - the kind that comes down in sheets, floods the side roads quickly and tends to clog the two major highways in South Florida.

It even frizzes the hair.

Nasty, I tell ya.

But that's not why the morning was crappy.

It was crappy because of my doctor's appointment.

I should've known when I got to the building and noted SKIN CANCER ASSOCIATES emblazoned in huge letters on the stucco entryway.

Something about seeing the word cancer in big letters got to me.

I started thinking about all of my friends who lost loved ones to cancer. WB, Dina, Todd, Debby, Lucy, Curtis...I could go on and on. I thought about my dad, who died from lung cancer back in 2001. My cousin who died from Leukemia when he was 5.

And I thought about Rich and how he must have felt going to the cardiothoracic surgeon that first time.

But that's still not the reason the appointment was crappy.

I got to the waiting room, signed in, sat down and let me tell you - I gazed around the room and realized that I had never seen so many really sickly looking people in one place.

Old women in wheelchairs with lumpy brown spots & pock marks lining their arms, old men with pale yet puffy skin, an underweight teenaged girl with a pasty complexion and a bandana around her head, a 40-something executive in his suit and sporting a huge bandage on one side of his jaw.

No one was smiling.

And I immediately thought "WTF? What am I doing here?".

I'm not sick.

I have a friggin overstated zit on my face.

But wait, that's still not why it was crappy.

The doctor marked me with a pen, took snapshots and then mumbled his observations into a little pocket voice recorder. He asked me to sign a two-page waiver which basically stated "I understand that the procedure will leave scars and require reconstruction".

Reconstruction? Isn't that indicative of something that was first destroyed? Sheeeeshhhhh.

He explained that I'll be on local anesthetic, and that I can expect to be in the OR for up to 8hrs, depending upon how badly the cancer has spread.

Apparently, squamous cells under the eyes can spread underneath without much evidence on the surface.

Lucky me.

So I get to sit through them carving out one skin layer at a time until they're sure that it's all been removed.

And that is why my day was crappy.

December 15th is D-day....yeah, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm....not.

I did manage to cheer up when I got to work though. I found a blow up "Bozo the Clown" punching bag while in Tampa, and one of my friends filled it with air last night and had it waiting in my office.

So yeah, being greeted by Bozo made me smile.

I walked past him and shot a right hook to the nose that knocked him back at a 45 degree angle.

He bounced right back with his silly Bozo grin.

If we could all recover so quickly.

And then I got a dozen beautiful roses from WB. Again.

I'm so fortunate to have him in my life. For so many reasons...he's the light in my life.

posted by oren_ishii at 1:07 AM 0 comments