Needle in a PEZ ....

Après le first chemo I felt - well - like I had to pee like a race horse - sleep like I had never done so - eat because they said so and wait.

Wait to... See to feel - if it was going to be like all that info in the binder - like the heads up from the all the nurses - like the vets I had met who battled their mets ( not yours Michel Balan from last comic standing whom I love)

But it was just another day when I woke up.

Until the lunch bag and I had a not so hot lunch date. It has to be stuck in you xactly 24 hours after chemo.

Liza drove me to the clinic where I knew I would be seeing great nurses and also touching underfunded yuck.

We were early. I had a short sleeve shirt on for easy access to the puncture zone.

Enter the room. Unzip goes the bag. Dear heavens. Am I a horse? The needle was was huge.- it was like a PEZ dispenser. But so not sweet. Pre ow pre ow.

The care giver says - " Liza I can show you how to administer ... "

Liza is rarely pale - save for on a beach - in the sun by a pool - or when the Raiders lose - but her face was not of a crayon I have seen. She would not have even made Winter Wheat on a paint chip.

"Maybe not " said the care giver. With such a knowing grin.

"SO NOT" said the coward on the table in the short sleeve shirt.

And thus with a pinch of my bicept - this ugly long needle hiding in a easy grip rectangle was slowly inserted into my left arm. It felt like it took a week. But in that five minute week this I knew -

This was a potential life saving needle that not every one gets - as their benefits do not cover the 5 grand cost - yes really maybe more -

That this long and painful super hero shot - as I came to call it - one I might die without it - as it built up my white blood cells and kept my bones alive... Was a priveledge ...

A long and painful needle I accepted as my kryptonie disguised in a an ugly blue lunch bag in an ugly blue needle case -

Disguising nothing more than the ugly blue inequities in access to health and care....

Day two of chemo - and already I face the reality .. That not only is life not fair - but death is so not fair ....