Journal of a Living Lady #85
Nancy White Kelly
Some weeks my cancer doctor travels from town to town in our rural area to keep patients from having to make the almost two hour drive over the mountains for treatment. I do my best to make my appointments locally as traveling with bone metastasis is uncomfortable at best. The round-trip drive, plus the wait in the appropriately called “waiting” room, plus the actual treatment time takes hours.
I am not always so fortunate to get
treatment within ten miles of our home, but I take advantage of it when I can.
Today was one of those days. There is a trade-off for the convenience.. The
main location for chemotherapy is spacious, well-staffed, and has comfortable
recliners. The near-by satellite office is jokingly referred to as “camping
out.” This multi- office complex is shared
by individual doctors of
different specialties. The office has terrible acoustics and sometimes not enough
chairs. There is one available unused room with an examining table in the back
which I have dibs on only because few know to ask for it. Occasionally an
over-flow patient is put into the room with me. Like mine, their I.V. bag of
chemicals is hung from a thumb tack in the sheetrock wall. It is a primitive
arrangement, but it works.
I was lying on that table taking my
two-hour drip, when an older lady was introduced to me. She settled in to take
her chemotherapy. We exchanged niceties and I continued reading. Eventually I put down my book. The lady and
I struck up a conversation as is often the case when two or more cancer
patients are forced to sit or lie in close proximity for a seemingly unending
time.
She looked grandmotherly with her
housedress and long hair pulled into a bun. She told me about her recent cancer
experience and surgery. She was hopeful that the disease had been caught early
enough. I gave her a brief synopsis of my cancer history. Her happy expression
changed when she realized that my cancer had recurred and metastasized after
twelve years. We continued with chit-chat. Two strangers filling in the time
with idle conversation.
After a lengthy period of silence,
she said, “You know. You ought to read that column in the Sentinel called “The
Living Lady.” I could not help but faintly smile. “It is the first piece I read
when I get that paper.”
The elderly lady used her free arm
expressively as she told about some of her favorite columns, the last one being
about my bread-making fiasco. I was trying not to out-and-out grin.
Finally it was confession time.
“I am the Living Lady.”
Her mouth fell open with
astonishment. “You don’t look like your picture,” she said as she sucked in air
in a gasp.
“It really is an old
picture,” I replied, explaining that it was made the same year I had surgery
for cancer in 1986. “I haven’t had a photograph since that I particularly like,
so my editor settled on this one. ”We both chuckled at the unexpected result of
our short time together.
True, the years have taken its
toll. I don’t look much like that picture anymore except for the smile. I plan
to copyright and patent that spunky smile. It
comes with my DNA and cancer will never take it away.
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nancyk@alltel.net https://www.angelfire.com/bc/nancykelly
