The Wet Spot [Serious TMI Alert]

What started this whole thing was a horrible cough that wouldn't go away. I'm not talking about cute little coughs like you get during a mild cold, or allergy coughs that tickle the back of your throat, but big hearty coughs that wrack your entire upper body like you were just rear-ended by an F150. Big fucking heaving coughs that I was sure my neighbors could and would get me kicked out of the building for. 

Occasionally I coughed so hard that I nearly vomited. But far more often, I coughed so hard that I peed myself a little. Sometimes a lot. That says a lot about my cough considering my kegel muscle and I are old buddies. 

Pantiliners quickly proved they weren't up to the task so I ordered a maxi-sized package of maxi-pads from Amazon (my pulmonologist has forbidden me from getting covid, so I now do all shopping through either Amazon or the grocery delivery service Shipt). 

Have you looked at maxi-pads recently? Or smelled their fresh powdery smell of menstrual shame? They're vile. They took me right back to being twelve years old and trying to cram one (with wings! because those supposedly help the bloodbath in your crotch!) into my underwear and hoping my butt didn't look fat and bunched up in my jeans. 

But at least I didn't need to sit on a towel on my own couch anymore. 

Fucking cough. Thanks to this stage 4 lung cancer cough, I have now gone through two plus sized packages of maxi-pads in a month. Fucking cough.

Sadly this is not where the post ends. 

On the day I was admitted into the hospital for chemo, it was a whirlwind of a day. The original plan was that on the next day, Thursday, I would be meeting my oncologist for the first time. That Sunday however, I had been placed on 24/7 oxygen after a visit to the ER showed that my lungs could no longer sustain me or my stage 4 sarcoma. Like, not even close. 

When the sarcoma nurse called to discuss my upcoming oncology appointment and it became clear my oxygen situation was indeed a true situation, she called me back and told me that medical transport was on its way to pick me up and take me to the hospital to be admitted so that I could start on chemo the very next day. 

Whoa shit, say what now? 

Well I guess when you have stage 4 cancer in five different organs, things get put on permanent STAT order. 

Within three hours I was in my own room eating a stone-cold hamburger (all organic, grass-fed beef, because Oregon) and hearing my prognosis for the first time. 

"Without chemo, you have weeks to months. With chemo, you have a year."

You would think that would scare the piss out of me, but it didn't. This was far from a surprise. You'd have to be stupid to think anything less with cancer as metastasized as mine. 

Nonetheless, it was still a shock to hear coming from someone's mouth other than my own. 

One year. 

The day had been such a whirlwind that I hadn't gone to the restroom in hours and hours. From the moment I ended the call on my phone with the sarcoma nurse and filled in my brother (who had flown in two days earlier to help me through my early days of cancer) on our new schedule, we had been running all over the apartment getting me ready for a three to five day stay at Kaiser across town. We had packed underwear, lots of snacks, coloring books and crayons, my Kindle, Harry Potter 4, and half a package of maxi-pads of course. 

They moved me from the admittance ward to the oncology ward where I would be receiving chemo the next day. My new room was pimped to the nines with a 54" TV, 65 channels (The Office! Big Bang Theory! Even Sex and the City!), private bathroom (not that I would use the shower, because I'm pretty sure I would have felt even dirtier after using it no matter how much it smelled like cleaning products), sleeping chair, and padded area in a window long enough for my six foot tall brother to sprawl out on with room to spare.

I changed into my gown with difficulty, since I was still getting used to maneuvering around an oxygen tube and neck holes are little bitches when it comes to that. I only managed to tie the lower cord on the back of my gown and that was hard because the cord was only six inches long on one side, and that was unfortunately the side that I'm a bit handicapped on because of scoliosis surgery I had at age 18 that makes it hard to bend over or twist to the side like a normal person. 

After an hour or two in the hospital bed talking to my brother, the night nurse came to introduce herself. She said since I had fallen earlier in the day, I had to be assisted to the bathroom for the next 24 hours and did I need to go to the bathroom?

I realized I hadn't been in ages and so I probably should. With one hand holding my gown closed in the back (the nurse had tied it shut for me, but I was untrusting of the gown by now), I dug through my purse looking for a maxi-pad, my face slowly flushing again. 

"Looking for this, Megan?" 

My brother held up a fat pastel green package taken from one of the many reusable Target bags we'd brought with us.

"Thanks, little brudder," I muttered, my eyes down as I snatched it out of his hand. We were still both traumatized from the granny panties incident only hours earlier.

***TMI STARTS HERE but seriously you're a grown up, you should be able to deal with the following so keep reading you big pansy

Everything was a mess, especially since my uterine fibroid had recently started acting up, obviously wanting to compete with the cough/my lungs for attention. My underwear was a bit damp after having been second place to all the day's excitement, so I had to go back into the hospital room to dig out some fresh underwear while my brother Jon graciously stared at his phone in the corner. 

I put everything right and went back to my bed, holding the gown closed with one hand and the oxygen tube with the other to make sure I didn't trip on it again. 

That's when I saw it. 

A very clearly defined ring of moisture in the middle of my bed, right where I had been sitting the last two hours. My face turned bright red in an instant. 

The nurse was turning to leave when I said, "Um, this is so embarrassing..." and started to point at my bed.

"Oh the stuffed animals? No, I think they're cute! We see them all the time, there's no need to be embarrassed!"

"No, um... I meant that..." With nothing short of complete mortification, I raised my finger to point at the wet spot I'd left behind on the bed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my brother look at it then look away quickly. AGAIN. We had just been through ONE horrible sibling experience, why did we need TWO? ON THE SAME GODDAMN DAY. I MEAN SERIOUSLY.

"Oh! Let me take care of that real quick." The nurse jumped into action and expertly changed the sheets while I stood there waiting, still holding my gown and oxygen tubing. When she was done I muttered thank you and slid awkwardly back under the sheets. Things like this must not be uncommon because the nurse had left a pad in place for future accidents, although fortunately I only experienced this wretched moment of "improving my character" once during my stay. 

As I leaned back in my hospital bed, freshly dry, I thought to myself, I miss the good ol' days when "the wet spot" referred to something else entirely and only led to laughs and a bigger wet spot an hour later.

Fuck coughing.