Cancer Center Comedy

If for one moment you believe that sitting, semi-sedated, in this chemo recliner is boring, consider again. The past two days have been quite intriguing. Humor becomes a bit twisted, warped, morbid, and borderline psychopathic in a cancer center. I issue this forewarning: as a cancer patient, I am entitled to the right to laugh at these scenarios, because I have been there and done that. For the rest of you, we would find you heartless and callous to hear you joking about these topics. If you are easily offended (or a cancer patient who has yet to develop the idiosyncratic humor that can laugh at cancer catastrophes and death to keep from crying), then you might want to stop reading HERE. :-)

The Toilet Seat Mystery

Our home was always comprised of three daughters, a mother, a female cat, a female dog and one male – my husband (talk about an estrogen overload). He quickly learned that toilet seats are always returned to their original position – otherwise he would hear about it from the women in the house. Yesterday, I unplugged my IV, waltzed with the IV pole to the restroom at the cancer center, opened the door and to my horror of horrors, someone had left the seat up on the toilet! My first thought was that there were about 5 men in the chemo room, so the suspect could be easily identified. Then to further disgust me, the villain had not flushed when he finished. For those of you familiar with chemotherapy, you know that some chemos are infused RED and are excreted RED. So, I now had a second clue to the villain. I didn’t read Nancy Drew mysteries as a young girl with no benefits – I am a super sleuth and within moments of exiting the restroom, I had identified the culprit. I issued him a citation and returned to my seat (just kidding).

Rumblings and Roars from the Next Room

Due to my being so immunocompromised, I have often must sit in a small private area of the infusion center. Usually, I fail to notice a lot of the excitement of the larger infusion room. Yesterday there was a mass exodus from one section of the larger room to the opposite end due to the snorer of all snorers. All of us familiar with premedications, recognize the potential to fall into a deep medication-induced sleep in a public location and begin snoring aloud (or singing along to the MP3 player). This man snored louder than I thought humanly possible. My daughter stopped to see me at lunch and she could barely contain her laughter. She said, “Why doesn’t someone just go shake him and wake him up?” Much to all of our relief, the medications wore off and he returned to consciousness and quiet, unbeknownst to him that he had entertained (or irritated) everyone for the past two hours.

Get the Spray

There is one phrase at the cancer infusion center that when uttered, we all know there is trouble. “GET THE SPRAY!” I won’t go into the gruesome details, but chemo causes nausea and nausea causes ……. Today, the chemo concoctions must have been particularly potent as there was a “whole lotta sprayin’ goin’ on”! There is nothing more vile or pungent that spray trying to cover up the after effects of chemo.