Wal-Mart Coffee and Sean Connery

I got some really good news today, and it put to rest a lot of my fears about the future. This morning we met with the surgeon for a follow-up appointment and he told us that the pathology report from surgery showed “clear margins”, meaning that he got all of the cancer. Well, except for the cancer that’s still on my lung. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, you know. Now I’m just barely cancerous. Woot!

I also had the pleasure of yet another CT scan. For those of you who haven’t received such a golden opportunity, just let me describe it for you. First, you take the shuttle ride to the ROC. It’s actually named the “Radiation Outpatient Center”, but all I can think of any time the shuttle driver (always the same sassy lady who wears gloves with cut-off fingers like she’s expecting to have to break up a brawl between the almost exclusively geriatric and very sick clientele behind her) calls out, “Welcome to the Rock”, is Sean Connery’s voice growling, “Gentlemen, welcome to The Rock” when he and Nic Cage finally break into Alcatraz.

Anyways, once Sean Connery greets you, you enter the ROC and immediately notice that the waiting room is, shall we say, generously proportioned, and that there are a LOT of people waiting for a scan of some sort. Yes, you correctly surmise, you’re going to be here for a while, and dammit, you forgot your book. You beat the old man with whom you had a thrilling conversation on the shuttle about his coffee buying habits at Wal-Mart to the check in desk and pay the price in the form of a hard-core old man stink-eye, then you join the rest of humanity in the waiting room, just one more monkey in the proverbial barrel. That old man was really slow anyways, right? No, you don’t have to feel bad about that.

Next step- the drink. You get to slurp down 32 ounces of radioactive material in your favorite flavor of crystal light while you continue to kick yourself for that forgotten book (you’re at the good part, too!), then they call you back to stick you with another IV (better use the right arm. They already stuck the left one to draw labs this morning) and ask you fun questions about things like your last bowel movement and if you’ve had a fall within the last week. Being a rock climber now for the last 15 years, you always like to answer, “how far?” as you imagine some of the 30+ foot falls you’ve taken when out on the vertical, but the nurse of course never gets your inside joke with yourself and simply repeats the question while peering seriously over the top of those spectacles.

You just thought those questions were personal enough to forever rob you of your dignity, but no, your humiliation is far from complete. Next you’re taken to the dressing room, where you’re ironically robbed of your own clothing (shouldn't it be the undressing room?) and forced into a one-size-fits-all set of clothing that was cut to fit someone easily 200 pounds heavier than you and shaped like a gingerbread man. Then you’re led to a recliner labeled “N3”, which will serve as the location of the final sullying of your soul. Now you are no longer you, but only “N3”. NOW your identity is gone and your humiliation complete and they give you twenty to thirty minutes comfortably ensconced underneath a mandatory warm blanket to contemplate that fact before asking you to pad down the hallway in your brightly colored anti-skid socks to the actual CT machine. You’ve finally made it.

The rest is easy, just lay down on the table and breath in an out as instructed. Oh, and try not to pee yourself when they inject the contrast. It’s going to feel like you’re peeing yourself, but you’re not. Don’t worry.

 Pff…

 So that’s a day in the life. Cancer is death by a thousand cuts, not a mercifully quick stabbing (and yet I still have a sweet scar that looks like I was in a sword fight). Hopefully the death leads to life, though, right?