A Monday

Not quite noon and it seems as if I've lived an entire day which is not true but I was up before six. Sweetie and I went with Kathleen to see her new oncologist and the appointment was for seven and really- it's bad enough you have cancer. Seven a.m.? Well, I suppose it's good to get it over with.

We met with Dr. B. He is tall. It seems that Tallahassee has a lot of very tall doctors. None of them, of course, as tall as Mr. Moon but still, tall. And there it was, seven-fifteen a.m. and Dr. B was there in his tie and nice shirt and looking all groomed and fit and alert and he began his questions, his exam.
I'm sure that Kathleen will be telling the story but from my point of view, standing in the corner, he seemed thorough and non-emotional although not unkind. As to how good a doctor he is- who knows? I hope he is a genius. I hope he is amazing. I hope he is the very, very best.
And I was thinking about that this morning. How we get a referral to go to this doctor or that one and then that doctor sends you to this one or that one and really- how do we know? How do we know if any of them are any good?
You can ask an OB or a midwife what his or her C-Section rate is, but you can't exactly ask an oncologist what his patients' survival rates are. And it wouldn't matter anyway.
It so often boils down to whom you feel comfortable with. Someone may love her doctor because he's touchy-feely, not afraid to share your pain, not afraid to show his or her own feelings. Someone else may want a doctor with a steely, determined glint in his eye, ready to battle your disease with the strength and purposefulness of a super-hero. Some may want more of a detached, scientific sort of doctor.
The way we feel about our doctor has to affect our outcome, I would think, at least a little bit.

But we put our lives into the hands of so many all the time from the guy who makes your lunchtime sandwich to the pilot to flies you from here to Las Vegas to the guy who is coming up to the four-way stop the same time as you. We have to do this. We have to have a basic trust in our fellow humans. We want our doctors to be educated and qualified and we want our restaurant workers to wash their hands and and we want our pilots to be sober and well-rested and there are laws put in place to make sure all of that is true, but still- human nature- who knows?

Well, Kathleen has put her cancer into the hands of this Dr. B. who looked quite capable, even at seven a.m. He talked about chemo and she and I were discussing it later. The hair-loss part, specifically. He had mentioned that some chemo patients do tend to experience hair loss. "Do you think I will?" Kathleen asked me.
"Have you ever known anyone on chemo who didn't lose their hair?" I asked. We both thought about it and agreed that no, we have not.
"Well, I'm thinking that if you lose your hair, maybe I'll do that thing where I'll get mine buzzed to show solidarity for you," I said. "I've always wanted an excuse to cut my hair that short."
"Okay," she said, "If you want to."
"I've never really understood how that helps but whatever. It would be a good excuse," I told her.

Who knows? Maybe I will. And maybe she won't lose her hair. Kathleen is not your normal monkey, I'll tell you that. And who is? Who among us is the normal one?
Not me and not you, I'm pretty sure of that.

So it's Monday. It's lunchtime but I'm not hungry. We were going to go to Whataburger for Taquitos after the appointment but a mammogram got pushed into breakfast time and well, we ended up at Panera which is probably better for us anyway and that filled me up, that breakfast sandwich on a jalapeno bagel. Last night Mr. Moon and I went to Spring Creek restaurant for supper and I ate so much stuffed flounder that I hurt myself and went to bed feeling as if I might die, but did not, and I thought I'd never eat again, but already have, but I'm certainly not hungry now. I will be later. That's life.

I thought I'd never be going back to that oncologist's office again after I went there many times with my friend Sue years and years ago but today I did and it looked exactly the same. Sweetie had gone there for her own cancer treatment years ago and she says that they have the same exact stains on the carpet. It's a pretty damn depressing office. So much brown. But they did have good magazines. In Style and Vogue and National Geographic. So much better than Web M.D. which is NOT a magazine in my opinion or Golf World or Investment Monthly which some doctors think is decent waiting room reading and which I think are insults to their patients for very obvious reasons.

So there is that.

And here we go. We joke about hair and magazines and carpet stains and we go get breakfast and then we come back to our homes and our dogs and our chickens and go on with our days until the next appointment which will lead to the next until some day Kathleen will be healed and that will be THAT. Owen is coming today and I hear he is kissing with some regularity and enthusiasm and all I can say is that I hope he kisses me.

The doctor did tell Kathleen that yes, she should go ahead and order tickets for her trip to Spain in September and that sure made us smile. It's so good to have something to look forward to- wellness, a trip, a Taquito, a baby kiss, a few hours of alone-time to watch an old movie, to read a good book, to lie in a kiddie pool and look up at the clouds scuttling across the sky through the leaves of the pecan tree.

We put our lives and well-being into the hands of others, we go out for breakfast, we come home, we rest, we do the dishes, the laundry, we hug and kiss each other. We say I love you, and we mean it.