Feeling Like a Cancer Patient

It wasn't being wheeled from the medical transport/ambulance (necessary now that I was on oxygen 24/7) that made me feel like a cancer patient. 

It wasn't the hideous hospital gown that made me feel like a cancer patient. Not even the bright yellow hospital booties with the anti-slip grip on the bottom (see header), nor struggling to tie the back closed on my own--made all the more difficult because they gave me an average-sized gown when I'm way more of a fatass-sized kind of girl. 

It wasn't the parade of nurses I got, each asking me my name and birthday to confirm my identity that made me feel like a cancer patient, even though that got old after the third nurse.

It wasn't getting into a bed with its own remote control that made me feel like another sad hospital patient, although playing with the buttons was a teensy bit fun.

It was when I tripped on my own oxygen cord and tumbled to the ground, feeling my entire bare back exposed to the room, the nurse, and my brother as he half-caught me on my way down. 

Granny Panties. My poor younger brother got an eyeful of my aged pastel pink granny panties. Before I stood up I pulled the back of my gown closed, my face flushing bright in shame. The nurse fluttered over me, making sure I was okay because I had just tripped and fallen so spectacularly within ten minutes of arriving in the chemo room.

Once upon a time, that tribal tattoo on my ass was sexy and fun, something guys rubbed their hands over greedily when we were in bed together. Now knowing that it was showing through my semi-transparent full-size underwear? Not so much. In fact it may feel forever tainted by this moment in the hospital.

I looked at my brother, relieved that he was looking away even though he seemed as embarrassed as I did. We had just shared something no siblings should ever share and I am sure we will both be trying desperately to forever forget happened, when in fact it felt like precisely the moment that everything changed. 

It was as I was falling and my brother attempted to catch me that I felt like a cancer patient. The gown, the room, the beeping, the tubes, the special hospital socks, the IV, the cold hamburger on a tray, it all hit me at once. My brother later said he felt it in that moment too. Cancer patient.

Once the nurse was sufficiently placated that I was fine after my fall, I asked her to tie the back of my gown closed nice and tight, please damnit. Restore me some dignity, here. They never gave me a gown that fit better, or maybe that was the biggest one they had? Who knows. Not that it matters, because I won't be 245 lbs for much longer if chemo ravages my body they way I've seen on TV. Which it will no matter how many gourmet meals my brother cooks for me in the upcoming weeks or pints of artisanal ice cream my cousin overnights me from halfway across the country.

I'm a cancer patient. I can never, ever go back to being normal. I will always be or have once been a cancer patient, or I will be dead from cancer because my prognosis just sucks that much.

I am a cancer patient. That's my story from now on. So fine. That's where this blog and even the blog name come into play, because cancer can Kiss My Chemo.