1.30.2008

Notes From the Cancer Clinic:

The waiting rooms of radiotherapy (aka the nukey dungeon), gyn onc, and the general oncology department have free drinks and snacks. They like us with a little meat on our bones.

Sometimes, when I'm helping myself to a piece of zucchini bread, I wonder if my cancer brethren/sistrethren are thinking that I'm an interloper just looking for free food as opposed to a fellow cancer cog. I think part of me still thinks of myself as not belonging to the club. Denial has its uses.



Scattered throughout these waiting rooms are multitudes of boxes of Kleenex facial tissue. The tissue is cheap, abrasive, and though generally white in color, is more often than not beige, signaling that only a few sheets are left in the box.

Every time I reach for a beige tissue, I wonder if the last person to use the box had just heard their diagnosis for the first time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel like people in the cancer clinic don't think I'm a real cancer patient either, especially since I still have my hair and I'm not as old and wrinkly as all of them are. We don't get good free food like you do - zucchini bread sounds yumy! We only get saltine crackers and a wide variety of teas and beverages. And a tiger puzzle to work on. Borrrrring.

Interesting thought about those kleenexes. Very poetic, I must say. :) Blessings to you.

Sugarmouth O'Riordan said...

The zucchini bread is surprisingly good, as is the pumpkin. I haven't sampled the banana yet--I prefer mine without nuts. I might have cancer, but I still have my standards. ;)