My sweet collegiate nephew recently inquired about my health to his mother and confessed upon questioning that he does not read my posts, because according to him they are too long.  This same nephew is rocking a mean strawberry blonde lion’s mane of hair and bounces up and down as if he is on a pogo stick after he throws a pass in football practice.  He is the perfect combination of Simba and Tigger!  If anyone reading this has ever watched Napoleon Dynamite, then you know where I am headed.  He is our liger - our lion and tiger hybrid - our chimera!  So, Mister Liger, at the end of this post you will find the Liger CliffsNotes version for your skimming pleasure.  Enjoy and I love you! 

P.S. – There will be a quiz.

There were even fewer people this week at chemo, which I believe is the lowest number so far.  I do not have the faintest idea why, but sometimes I like to live in a bubble and assume that all those wonderful people have finished their chemo, are in remission, and moving into the next phase of their journey.  I prefer to air on the side of optimism!  Even though there was not the typical number of cancer center occupants, there always seems to be something of interest worth noting, and this week was no exception.

Like usual, I checked in at the front desk, received my paperwork to be hooked up, drained, and fueled, and then headed over to the LabCorp to get on the waiting list.  Sitting in the lobby was a woman wearing a surgical mask; two people who I assume were her husband and sister waiting with her for her turn to see the LabCorp nurse.  As I wait, I like to see if I can guess if each person is there to get their blood drawn from their arm or their port, so I began my detective inquiry in my head about the woman in the surgical mask. 

Things I notice:

• Blue patient binder that the center calls “your brain” that is given to all patients before they start a chemo/radiation regime 
• She still had all hair
• Surgical mask
• Nervous pacing
• More than one person with her

Things I pondered:

• Has she already started chemo?
• Does she have a compromised immune system due to chemo, which would explain the mask?
• Is she sick and sparing all of us her germs?
• Is she a germaphobe?
• Is she in remission and here for a follow-up?

On and on my brain went as I trampled through scenario after scenario about the woman in the surgical mask until the LC nurse called her name and off she went to the secret room where blood is siphoned from some part of the body albeit arm or port.  Figuring I would never learn whether the masked lady was an arm or port, I went back to reading my book.  Much to both my satisfaction and dissatisfaction another LC nurse returned asking for the family of the lady masquerader, which uncovered the answer to the arm or port question.  It turned out that it was the masked woman’s first time getting all hooked up via her port, she was distressed, crying, and the nurse thought that her family might ease her emotions, so off they went to the secret blood siphoning room to comfort her. 

Immediately, I thought back to my first week, how scared I was, how I teared up while sitting in the port draw chair while the blood-siphoning nurse applied a cold alcohol swab to the skin over my port, and I instantaneously felt compassion and sadness for Mrs. Mask.  I wanted to wait for her to come out, hug her, and tell her that as soon as the first treatment is over you will feel a sense of relief that you have never felt before.  The relief of all that stress you have bottled up inside waiting with anticipation of what to come. 

I did not wait.  I did not hug her.  I did not tell her that all will be well after the first treatment not because I lost my compassion, but because let’s face it that would be extremely creepy and an invasion of privacy.  Could you imagine some stranger lurking in the lobby for you to come out, give you hug, and then proceed to tell you that everything would be okay?  I am pretty sure that crazy individual would have sent me into writer overload and our Liger would complain even more over the length of my CaringBridge post on that day.   

Liger CliffsNotes:

• Your aunt saw a woman in a surgical mask at the cancer center.  She calls her Mrs. Mask.
• It was Mrs. Mask first chemo treatment.
• Your aunt felt compassion and sadness for Mrs. Mask.
• Do not wait for strangers in a doctor’s lobby to hug them.  That’s creepy!

Good luck and have fun this weekend in the spring game.