Self Glossing Portland Writer Gives Cancer Warning

 

“Warning? We don’t need no cancer warning,” said everyone who’s never followed directions even once.

 

With cancer warnings around every corner, every speck of asbestos in the ceiling, breath of air, drink of water, it gets wearing to the point of being normal.

 

More people with cancer? More young people? More millennials, GenX, boomers? More babies?

 

Yes, all of them. And they all have someone who doesn’t know how to deal.

 

That’s the cancer warning part of today’s boomerpdx missive. The self glossing Portland writer part fits in like the lost piece in a bigger puzzle.

 

Here it is:

 

Stand in front of a cancer person, cancer survivor, cancer warrior, the list is endless, and you might be standing before them with a familiar look. At least that’s what they think. They think everyone else sees them differently.

 

Sometimes they’re right.

 

There’s a common expression at funerals. You recognize it after going to a few services. I saw it at my uncle’s husband’s memorial, my dad’s last call, and my mom’s return to the ocean.

 

I’ve seen the same expression on friends and family over the course of my own cancer ride. Doubt about what to say, what to do, what’s really wrong? Eventually a cancer reality sinks in. Like cancer water and cancer air, I was just the next in the cancer line. I saw it on my own face in the mirror. Not pretty.

 

Once I got off myself I looked around and saw the faces that broke through the cancer mask of wtf.

 

Follow me back to the third stage of radiation. It was after the second dose of chemo cancer drugs and I was feeling it. Call it sluggish.

 

I drove my sluggish butt to the St. Vincent basement radiation room, gowned up, pants on, and sat in the calm of the twilight lit waiting room. One room was bright, the other not so bright. I found a chair against the wall. A large screen tv blinked in front of a older man sitting on the other side of the room in a gown without pants.

 

A woman sat in a chair near a table lamp reading a copy of Coping Magazine.

 

All was calm, if not bright. And then:

 

“The problem with this country is people like you, people who want it all for free, the handouts, the perks, without putting anything on the table,” a voice called across the room.

 

A man’s voice and it wasn’t Fox News.

 

I was too sluggish to care but I listened.

 

“You people are entitled to the American dream? Well dream on. You take and everyone else gives. That’s how it was, but it’s changing,” the voice said.

 

I looked at the woman across the table reading, a middle aged white women dressed like she’d just driven in from the coast.

 

“Who’s he talking too?” I whispered.

 

She swung her eyes without turning her head.

 

“It’s you or me. I’m driving my neighbor in from Cannon Beach and you’re in a gown and we’re all that’s here,” she said.

 

“The biggest change is kicking freeloaders like you off the dole, and that’s the truth to making America great again,” the man said.

 

The woman leaned over and said, “That’s my cue to go. I can’t help myself with these jackasses. I need to stay calm for my neighbor.”

 

With no further exchange she stood and left me and old crusty together. Was he talking to me? Like Robert DeNiro talking to the mirror in Taxi Driver, ‘Are you talking to me?’ I wanted to ask.

 

But I knew the answer. He was quiet for a minute, so I asked.

 

We discussed like gentlemen. I wanted him to know how things were changing in Trump America. And how they’re not changing if you bully women drivers in the cancer waiting room. Turned out I wasn’t too sluggish to mount up as the knight in shining armor, or at least a knight in a hospital gown.

 

It started my cancer warning where he left off, with the lady driver, one of the people with the sort of beauty you only find in cancer waiting rooms.

 

“How’d you get here, old man?” I asked. His uncivil act deserved a dose of my own? No, but I was in a sluggish state of mind.

 

“Who are you talking to?” he said. I love it when a bully can’t believe someone is addressing them without permission. It sounded more like a Robert DeNiro moment than ever.

 

“It’s dark, man, so I’m not sure, but I see a someone across the room in a party dress and no one else, so I guess it’s you,” I said.

 

“I’m wearing a hospital gown.”

 

“Sure, whatever princess. How’d you get here? Did you drive? Your wife? Daughter? Did your neighbor drop you off?” I asked.

 

“If it’s any of your business I came in a cab,” he said.

 

“It’s wasn’t any of my business until you drove the woman sitting here away, the woman who drove her neighbor to cancer treatment, like I’m here for. What are you here for, a fashion show with your frock and knee socks?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’m sure I don’t want to hear it,” he said.

 

“Neither did I, sir. Let me return the favor with a cancer warning. Any change is the wrong change when old guys like you think they can hurt women with their verbal bullying. It was weak, but I still didn’t like it. It hurt me. I’m here to kick cancer ass and you’re here to abuse women, is what I see. Is that part of your treatment plan, or did you add the shithead option yourself?”

 

“Pardon me?” he said.

 

“Now you can’t hear? I think you can hear just fine, but verbal abuse jerks always pretend they can’t. I was doing the same thing earlier, except I heard you and couldn’t believe anyone would spew regurgitated republican crap at someone doing one of the most humane things people do. Caring for a neighbor. That’s why you came in a cab? Where’s your wife and kids? Where’s your grandkids. They’d be old enough to drive a sweet old man like you. But they don’t. I’m not asking why. You already told me.”

 

What are the chances of a brawl in the cancer waiting room? Would it have been a first? I pushed on to find out.

 

What you hear during cancer treatment is, “Do whatever it takes to get through it.”

 

The more I slung cancer warning at the old fart, the less sluggish I felt. It felt like a green light to pile on. I was warming up another salvo of personal attack when the radiation tech showed up.

 

He pointed at me and turned. I followed.

 

===

 

A cancer warning is like a storm warning. Things change, but not what you expect. When you meet the next cancer person, think about driving them to a better place with your sweet expression.

 

And like a storm warning, a cancer warning is a good place to start before the cells hit the fan.