Stirrup Toes. Tumor Board. Just a couple of funny lines that have turned into inside jokes the last week while going from one doctor visit to the next. Odd, it may seem to some, to be giggling, in a clinical room with people you have just barely met that are now going to be putting their hands, digits, lights, camera and all sorts of action in my nether region. But when you have orange and purple bedazzled toes up high in the stirrups, people notice, then comment and their job is done. Stirrup Toes, break the tension, remind me that I have a cousin that loves me and came over to bedazzle my toes the night before any illusion I ever had to privacy was permanently revoked and gives me something to grin about while an attending asks a resident, an intern and a student "Hey, did you get a look at the tumor? Did you?" All this, as the thin spotlight shines up from in between, my Stirrup Toes.
It is hard to not say tumor without sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger from "Kindergarten Cop." At least for me, and my Mom. So when the radiation specialist said he would be going over my case, as they do every Monday on the Tumor Board, I nearly bust out laughing. Of all things to call it, why Tumor Board? I like alliteration, so how about Tumor Table, Tumor Tribunal, or we have Tumor Talk Time.... could be a new show. "This is Your Life" meets "Mystery Diagnosis."
Announcer - "And today we have a cervical tumor. Adenocarcinoma 1b1. Adeno, how do you feel about your upcoming removal from your host body? Nervous, excited? How long did you live there, before being discovered? Do you consider yourself a squatter or a parasite? Any plans to spread?"
Tumor sits there. Like a tumor.
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