When the man at the Dirt Cowboy Cafe in Hanover looked at me askance, I didn't think much of it. After all, I was wearing my brand new, bright red Wagamama t-shirt. But when the man kept staring and clearing his throat, I finally met his gaze,
"You really should cover that up," he suggested in a whisper loud enough for the whole line to hear.
I looked around. My fly was up, my belly was covered, and I didn't have any offensive tattoos today. I patted my hair in case I'd suddenly gone part-bald and failed to notice.
And then he pointed at the crook of my left arm, the arm in which the hospital had put an 18-gauge IV in order to flood my system with dye for my CT scan last weekend. My arm is bruised, and there are track marks from a couple of misses by a nervous nurse. I stared at my arm, my face feeling hot, trying to fight the tears springing to my eyes.
He kept staring at me.
It was my turn to order.
"I was in the hospital last weekend. It's from an IV," I told him, loudly enough for the rest of the line, now staring at me, to hear -- like any of them had any right to know.
"Oh, well, that's good!" he replied, picking up his coffee and walking out of the door.
I could hardly speak to the barista. She asked if I was alright.
"Not really," I replied, "but I'll have a medium skim chai anyway."
There are so many things wrong with this picture, and one of them is that it never even crossed my mind that "people might think something" if I leave my arm uncovered. I've never really cared about what other people think, though, and I certainly don't care right now. I'm not supposed to have pneumonia bad enough that it causes me excrutiating pain if I sit too long or, God forbid, if I try to lie down. I'm 35 years old. I'm not supposed to have a blockage in one of my broncii and a partial collapse in the left lower lobe of my lung. I'm not supposed to have a pulmonologist, who will likely order another CT scan on Friday to see if I'm improving or not.
It's summer. I'm supposed to be swimming with my kids and playing tennis with my husband.
I've decided to try to find the humor in all of this, because, if I don't keep laughing, I'll never stop crying. I'm not the self-pitying type, and a lot of people have this illness without the benefit of youth or top-notch healthcare or my naive optimism. I've been called a lot of things in my life, but I've never been called a junkie. I guess I can cross that one off of my list now. Next?
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