Side Effects

Yesterday as I passed a woman on the sidewalk, I was in the act of pulling my scarf off my head because it was too hot, (the red and black flowered, cotton one that Hostess Mom  made and her Seamstress Daughter fixed so it would fit on my child-sized head). I find that while on the one hand it does not bother me too much to expose my baldness in public, on the other, I glance away from those big mirrors they put in elevators. I can live without hair, but I don’t have to like it.  The woman immediately stopped me. She was slender and had short silver hair, a bit how I might have looked if I had any, and she was about my age. When she spoke, she had a slight accent, Eastern European, maybe? Here in Canada I am surrounded by accents. She lay her hand on her arm and I could tell it was hard for her to get the words out, and she didn’t choose the best ones, but just what came out at the moment. I understand, and my words in answer weren’t the best either, weren’t even true, well, not in the short run, but were just the ones that came to hand in this human moment. I don’t speak well, “off the top of my head,” and soon regret anything of significance I manage to spit out because it never matches up with the ideal in my head. That is the lot of an introvert.

“…I pity you.”

“Oh, don’t pity me. I’ll be ok.” (I don’t know this, but it’s also true.)

“But I do. How many is this?”

“I’m on my third treatment.”

“No, how many cancers?” (I have to think about what she is asking me.)

“Oh, I am only on my first.” (Suddenly I feel like an amateur).

“My husband, he is on his second. He had treatment, twelve of chemo, but it has come back. Bone cancer (my heart sinks for her. Bone cancer.) His body could not handle it.”

“Have you lost him.”

“Not yet.”

“How are you doing?”

She looks away and shrugs.

“Do you have people around you?”

Her face brightens. She leans in. “Oh yes, oh yes. I have fourteen siblings, and my husband also has a big family. Yes, I have many people who help me.”

The interchange is over. “I am glad for you.” “I wish you good luck with everything.” We part ways.

What just happened? Two strangers, not good with words, cared about one another and then said good bye. I don’t even know her name, this silver-haired lady, going through it all a second time, who blessed me in a parking lot. When we meet up against the things we can’t beat, and we are honest enough, occasionally, to “take off the scarf” simply because things are getting too hot, people may meet us in our honesty somehow, haltingly, with the wrong words, and a light sharing of burdens can happen. At the very least, this can mean courtesy with strangers, greeting nurses in the ER, trying to stay cheerful when that’s possible, and it’s not always possible—not for me. It means remembering there are human beings under the uniforms. My cardiologist took off his “scarf” in this repartee.

Me. “I don’t really want to take a beta blocker, whatever that is, and fill up my body with more crap. If I don’t like the side effects, I know where to find you!”

Dr. Cynical. “No you don’t. This is just an office number, and I haven’t given it to you yet.”

“Then I’ll talk to your nurse. I’m sure you have one.”

“I’ll give her your name and warn her not to talk to you.”

“Then I will sic my oncologist on you.”

“Oh, Dr. B&B (ok, he used the real name), we go way back.”

At this point I realized I was not going to win this one. I laughed, and Dr Cynical went back to normal physician-patient mode. The next thing he said proved his utter cynicism, but that’s for another post. He proved I’m not the only one not good with words. But there was honesty, I’ll give him that, and he let me see the wit and calculation in his brain that he probably keeps mostly hidden. I’ll give him that. And he held his office visit in an ER room, writing his diagnosis (and phone number) on the back of a scrap of paper. I’ll give him that, too.

I think God wants more of this, and has designed us to meet silver-haired ladies in parking lots, mirrors of one another in some way, one still with hair, one without, with differing accents and stumbling over words, and he wants us to meet cold, cynical doctors and laugh, so that not all the side effects of cancer are evil.