Wednesday, February 13, 2008

When Worlds Collide

I wheeled my cart to the register, placed a rubber baby buggy bumper between my crap and the crap of the lady in front of me. I caught her just as she was getting her change, two customers in front of me was my gastroenterologist.

She looked frazzled and tired. My first instinct was to call out her name and say hello. Tell her thanks again for saving my butt.

But I didn't. At first I told myself that it was because she looked so tired and I didn't want to bug her. Now I think it's because in order to make sense of this all, I can't have my cancer world and my food shopping world collide. The mundane task of buying milk, limes and great northern beans wouldn't play nicely with the world of laxatives and ass-cameras.

4 comments:

Sugarmouth O'Riordan said...

I ran into one of the professors from the nutrition department in radiotherapy one day which probably would have sucked a lot more if I was still planning on finishing my degree.

Damn, I love me some limes. Hope they were liquor-bound. :)

Megan said...

The limes were for avocado cream:

1 avocado
2 Tbs lime juice
2 Tbs sour cream
1/2 clove garlic
cilantro
salt

Put all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Use as a dip or a topping for baked potatoes. Not sure how it would taste liquor-bound, but you could always experiment...

Ole!

Ed said...

Hi Megan,

Strangely enough, in my small town, I haven't yet run into the gastroenterologist yet. But I regularly see my surgeons, my medical oncologist, my ultrasound technician, and my CT Scan guy. We are close friends with several doctors, and they all run in the same circles - so to speak. We even share a "gourmet" dinner club with one of the partners of my gastroenterologist, a reading club with one of my surgeons, and my wife works with the wife of my radiologist (though we don't see them so much).

I feel like we are all part of one world, cancer and non-cancer combined. The fact that some of these folks have seen parts of me that, well, no one else has ever seen before, doesn't bug me so much. And, as professionals and people, they care about their patients. I am always glad to see them and they seem glad to see me - but that could be the difference between a population of 100,000 and several million.

Unknown said...

I understand how you feel.... I would probably do the same thing in your place if I were to run into my endo or rheumatologist outside of their office.

It's odd the way cancer changes so many of our perceptions and sensibilities.