Elder Son was abusing the zipper on his brand new winter coat before he left for school this morning.
"Be careful with that!" I scolded him. "That coat has to last you until you go to college!"
"Pft!" he replied. "I'm gonna outgrow it by then."
"You better not!"
"Like I can help it."
"You can stop growing if you want to. Look at me."
Look at me, he did.
He looked down at me.
I think my point was taken. So there.
*Note: Roughly 500 visits away from #40,000! Carry on...*
The Husband and I walked a couple blocks to the neighborhood bar Saturday night. Instead of wearing sneakers, I put on my dress boots. Several comments were exchanged regarding how my fancy shoes were making me walk too slow. Several more comments were exchanged regarding how cold it was, and we should have just driven.
As the evening closed, we walked back home. When we were within sight of our house, I combined our two gripes.
"Okay," I groaned, "I've gone about as far as I can in these boots. You go get the car and come pick me up."
"I can do that," The Husband agreed.
"Really?"
"Sure! But, you should know that I'm not coming back with the car until I leave for work Monday morning."
My Lily-Livered sister gets her first hit of chemo Monday.
I will finish her first hat later today and get it on its way to her in the snail mail tomorrow.
But, I wanted her to have something special for her first day...
So, I cut a small ball of yarn into three inch strips and pasted the pieces side by side onto transparent tape.
It's her Chemo Hat Starter Kit.
I hope she likes it.
Sister update:
She gets a port today.
Monday is her first hit of chemo.
I'm working on a hat.
And I'm feeling more hopeful.
I will call her tonight to see how she's doing.
I try very hard to bring you the funny, my friends.
Today's post is not the funny. It is far from the funny, and I invite you to skip it. I suspect it will be weighing heavily on my mind for quite some time.
Let's say you work in a hospital, and you cross paths with a doctor in the hallway. For no real reason, you decide to ask, "Hey doc, I've got this lumpy area here on my righthand side. Does it look like anything to you? Or is it nothing?"
And after a cursory fondle of your abdomen, he replies, "I think we should take a look at that."
The good news is, because you are a valued and cherished member of the hospital staff, you get every test in the book, and you get your results pronto.
The bad news is, it's bad news.
The worse news is, in the United States, you don't get liver cancer all by itself. Liver cancer is what happens because something else is wrong. And guess what? You don't have any symptoms to indicate what that other thing might be. Could be boobs, colon, or lungs.
And you're my sister.
But again, because you are a valued and cherished member of the hospital staff, you're getting attention from people who know you and care personally about you.
***
Oh, yes. Because she is family, her phone call to me started with, "So, has anyone in the family talked to you recently?"
Crap. "No one called to tell me anyone has been in the hospital."
"Oh. Well, I've been in the hospital."
"You work in a hospital."
"Well, yeah..."
"Are you calling me with bad news?"
"It's... news..."
***
I'm thinking of referring to her from now on as The Lily-Livered Sister and The Disease To Be Named Later.
(See how the humor works in there?)
***
There's no prognosis at this time. There's no treatment in motion. They need to know what all they're dealing with first.
For what it's worth, my sister says she'd prefer chemo to surgery. And since she works in surgery, that's really saying something.
***
I immediately pawed through my baskets of yarn looking for something special to crochet. I'm thinking a hat for her in case she loses her hair. Nice yarn. Pretty yarn.
I have piles of baby yarn. It's cute and all, but not for an adult woman.
I have piles of afghan yarn. But, no. It's all too thick.
Suddenly, I was in a panic to finish the Broncos hat I'm making for Richmond's dad and the two hats I started for the lady at work who'd just had emergency brain surgery. I had to finish these hats. I had to make a hat for my sister right away!
I was in the middle of planning a trip to the "fancy" yarn shop north of town when a quiet voice in my head told me, "You have time. She hasn't had chemo yet. She hasn't lost her hair yet. And. Making a hat doesn't cure cancer."
And I got really sad.
***
Incidentally, when I told Richmond about my sister, she immediately volunteered to be tested to see if she's a donor match.
"You've never met my sister, and you're offering her part of your liver?"
"Of course."
"Huh. And I was gonna give her a hat."
***
What I want you, dear reader, to take away from this is that my sister didn't feel sick at all. Didn't look sick, didn't act sick. No one said, "Hey, you're looking a little yellow. What's up?" She wasn't even thinking about making an appointment with a doctor to have this lumpy thing looked at. She just happened to mention it in passing.
Dunno about you, but I don't pass a doctor in the hallway everyday to just mention stuff to.
If something is bothering you, please see a doctor about it.
Please.
Right away.
Your phone is right there... it's right there.
If you wait, well, what kind of co-workers have your back?
It appears Ack!Thbbbt! is roughly 1,000 visits away from Visitor #40,000.
If traffic continues the way it has been for the last couple of weeks, Honored #40,000 will hit long before the end of the month.
I don't have any prizes to give away, but I think some special recognition for #40,000 will be in order.
Tell your friends!
Check back often!
It's 2010.
How do you say it?
Do you call it "Two thousand ten"?
or
Do you call it "Twenty ten"?
hood-lock n. the condition of being trapped within one's own hoodie as the result of two classmates simultaneous tugging on both ends of your hoodie strings therefore pulling the hood shut around your face and preventing you from leaving the scene. The most popular prevention measure includes removing one's own hoodie strings completely from the clothing.
Hence, Elder Son's disappointment in discovering that his hoodie strings are stitched into the hood of his favorite jacket.
*thbbbt*
There's a classic Carol Burnett skit where Tim Conway tells an elephant story that he has made up on the spot and his cast mates roll on the floor laughing as his tale just continues to grow more and more ridiculous.
Not that I'm in any class with Tim Conway, but I thought of him fondly as I had a story-telling experience similar to his at work...
I was microwaving my lunch in the breakroom when a couple of suits walked in to purchase sodas. They oo'ed over the new vending machine for a moment or two before Suit #1 (who knows me too well) pointed to the caution sticker on the corner of the machine.
#1: Look, Roses. 'No tipping or shaking'. Remember that.
Me: *deep sigh* Oh, alright.
#2: Has that been a problem in the past? (raises eyebrows accusingly) Is that why there's a new machine?
Me: Yeah. We used to have soda rodeos.
#2: Soda rodeos. (He is enjoying how that sounds when it's spoken outloud.)
Me: Right. A lot of tipping and shaking.
#2: Uh huh. So, you'd climb right up there and sit on the soda machine.
Me: But, they ordered this taller machine, see, and now you can't really fit up there anymore...
#2: (He looks.) I see.
Me: ... without removing the ceiling tiles...
#2: Mm.
Me: ... again...
#2: Uh...
Me: ...today.
Neorf!
I took advantage of a recent day off school/work and made doctor's appointments for several members of the family... including the cat.
The cat is growing. He's not overweight, yet, but if we continue to feed him the way we've been feeding him (re: on demand), he will be eventually. We've been advised to follow the serving size directions on his bags of kitty food.
The first thing the cat did when we brought him home? Headed for his food dish.
"Hey! Didn't you hear the doctor? You're on a diet!"
***
Younger Son worried all morning that he'd have to get blood drawn for something.
"I don't mind a shot so much," he said. "But to have a needle in my arm here, that hurts."
Turns out he only needed to pee in a cup.
"Do you think you can?" the doc wanted to know.
I chimed in, "Tell him he'll have to give blood if he can't."
"Dude," the doctor replied immediately, "you'll have to get blood out of both arms if you can't pee!" Then to me he muttered, "That's scary enough to scare the pee out of any kid."
***
Waiting in for the bathroom to open, Younger Son and I chatted with the nurse in the hallway.
"Remember when you were younger, and Dr. V would check your ears? He'd always say he saw girlfriends in there."
The nurse chuckled as Younger Son's eyes shot daggers at me.
I winked at Younger Son. "Aren't you glad he outgrew that?"
***
At the drug store, the pharmacist explained to Younger Son that the meds he was about to take might upset his stomach. "So eat something when you take this."
And he might also suffer mild diarrhea. There was a groan from the boy.
While I wrote out a check, he tugged at my sleeve. Silently, Younger Son showed me a box he'd plucked off the shelf. It was marked "anti-diarrhea".
Even the pharmacist snorted.
