<p>In the you-never-know-where-you-might-encounter-cancer department, I just happened to read (for the first time) “Floating Bridge,” a short story by Alice Munro that was originally published in the New Yorker and then in her collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, the main character of which is a woman who happens to have cancer, and if you’re in the mood for the sort of exploration of character and experience - subtle, nuanced, quiet, ambiguous, quirky - that, I think, only (the finest) fiction can provide, this is just about as good as it gets.</p>
<p>So often when I check this thread there are others who have posted before me, chimed in with the same advice I would have, or offered similar words of encouragement. Often I feel that they have already ‘spoken’ for me, so I don’t post. </p>
<p>I too check in every time I come to CC. I think of you all the time. All of us admire your clarity and strength and candor more than you can imagine. Padad is right, re Donne: you are letting us deepen our own humanity by sharing your experience with us. Thank you.</p>
<p>JEM, thank you for that, and, Soozievt is so right, there isn’t even a mean-spirited comment in this entire thread. </p>
<p>AND - I have some unexpected, very good news to share. My daughter and I are now certain that we have located the weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to be in Iraq. Being republicans we would of course find these things first. The drug cocktail that the doctor jinned up for me last night has been effective, although it has resulted in some serious bloating, and simply horrible gas. Obviously the wmds have been hiding out in my stomach all along, and we are just now figuring it out. </p>
<p>The smell is so bad - and I do mean really, really bad - that my daughter is using other patient’s bathrooms here at the hospital. My bathroom smells so bad from the accumulated gas that it simply cannot be used by anyone else. You can actually smell this from all the way down the corridor. </p>
<p>She suggested we get some Beano (does anyone know what that is?), feed it to me, and get rid of the rest of the gas. I thought maybe we could sell the stuff…given the cost of gas…I was thinking this material appears to be powerful enough to fuel a few small rockets…</p>
<p>beano works by helping with enzymes to break down difficult to digest carbohydrates that otherwise tend to ferment and cause gas. May not be the ticket here!</p>
<p>Well, LTS, the discovery of the WMDs will certainly be a great addition to your CV!</p>
<p>LTS…something has worked, yay! Sorry for the bad side effects but you do maintain a sense of humor and I admire that. Don’t worry, the hospital has seen and smelled it all before. I got really sick all through the night last night and felt like I had food poisoning of something…I don’t want to tell you about the bathrooms in my house last night and the clean up. So, I’ll commisserate with you. </p>
<p>Well, that is good news! And, true to form, you can laugh at yourself! Could we bottle the gas and drop it on our enemies (shade of Monty Python’s killer joke).</p>
<p>When I got pregnant with D, I immediately began eating a lot of dairy products, something I hadn’t done very much of until then. That’s when I discovered I was lactose intolerant. The smell got so bad that my husband slept in another room for a few nights, until I figured out what was going on and started taking calcium supplements instead. LTS, may your gas be the worst of your troubles!</p>
<p>LTS, you mention you are losing posts and having to retype. </p>
<p>Not sure what could be causing that, but how about copying what you wrote to the clipboard (highlight and control c) before you hit ‘post’. If it does evaporate, you can easily retrieve without retyping.</p>
<p>Beano decommissions all kinds of gaseous food experiences, at least for me…nuts, beans, cucumbers…I do not get the bloating and resultant “issues”. What about yogurt?</p>
<p>You might want to try GasX. Probably more effective than Beano which is to be taken before eating gas-producing foods. Re the missing car story – the humor author, Dave Barry gives a hysterical rendition in one of his books of the time his mother had a whole slew of strangers helping her search for her car in a parking lot only to remember, after an hour, that she’d bought a new car that week.</p>
<p>One time I walked home from a store that I had driven to. I had stopped on my way home from work. The next morning I thought my car had been stolen. Until my brain engaged and I realized I left it at the store. Definitely a pre-senior moment.</p>
<p>^^
When I was growing up, a neighbor police detective did just that. Later when his daughter asked to borrow the car, he handed her the keys from his pocket. When the car was not in the driveway, they notified the local police.
Thankfully, face was saved. When he remembered what had happened, he canceled the report, saying his wife had arrived home with the vehicle.</p>
<p>Someone I know’s son, who actually went to my college, is notoriously absent-minded. He didn’t see his car one morning, reported it stolen, got the insurance money and bought a new car and everything. Lo and behold, a few months later he found his car parked a block or two from his apartment, where it had been sitting that entire time.</p>
<p>LTS, be sure to check any gas medicine with your doctor first. Some drugs that seem benign just don’t mix well.</p>
<p>I have a house which desperately needs cleaning, three kids to get ready to get back to college, my daughter’s boyfriend is coming, followed by my mother for a week, a zillion things to do, and whenever I get a free minute, I log on and check out this thread. Sometimes I spend half an hour going back to see what I may have missed. I’m one of those lurkers, not writers, too. There is a pull to this thread. I feel honored that you let us in. You’re always in the back of our minds.</p>
<p>And then I’ll walk away from the computer and say something like, “good, she’s doing better” and the kids will say, “who?” and I’ll have to answer “latetoschool” and then try to explain who she is, which is not easy to do!</p>
