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Diarrhea of the mouth

The doctor told me I’ll need a mastectomy.  Almost half of my left breast is cancer.  The doctor said he wouldn’t do a lumpectomy on it because it’s so much of my breast.  He said I wouldn’t be happy with the results.  He told me he’d have me talk to Plastics to ensure I make an informed decision.  He explained that if I opted for an implant, they’d make me as symmetrical as possible.  (He kept emphasizing symmetrical, which worries me a little because it felt like he was leaving something out.  Kind of like when the MRI nurse told me I wouldn’t be strapped to the table…more like skewered.  She could have left the “skewered” off, and it would have been the truth.  Partial truth, but still the truth.)

“So, would they just make the implant saggy to match the other side?” I ask.

Doctor, looking down at the floor, smiled, “No, no, they’ll lift the other side.  They go for symmetry.”  And he even mimed lifting up his own right breast.

That comment to a doctor is on par with when I went to the eye doctor a few years ago, and he told me I have CHRPE in my eyes.  It can be an early sign of Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP…what the FAP?), which affects the colon and rectum, causing polyps and colorectal cancer.  I looked at him and said, “you mean you can see shit in my eyes?”

Or when I embarrassed the hell out of Chris after his eye surgery. His doctor was a beautiful Indian woman around our age.  She was explaining the recovery period, and how he can’t put pressure on his eyes.  

“So, sex…he can’t be on top?” Chris blushed so hard and busted out laughing, he almost fell out of the chair.

The doctor giggled a little and said, “Right–he can be on the bottom, but not the top.” If he could, Chris would have melted into that seat.

Or when I told my Ukrainian doctor after I found my breast lump, “boobs are waaaaay overrated.”  He turns red as a tomato when I say things like that.  He gives me that look like he just doesn’t know what to do with me.  The SMH-with-a-smile look.

Or when I was in the waiting room for my first breast MRI.  There were a couple posters up that stated we’d be provided with clothes to put on (scrubs) to go into the machine.  It said that there are certain fabrics that can’t go into the machine, specifically antimicrobial materials.  It said that many undergarments are made of this material.  Then way at the bottom, in parentheses, it stated, ‘Wearing this fabric in the machine may cause burns.’ I turned to that receptionist and said, “Whoa!  I would have hated to be the first person to figure that one out!  Talk about ‘My biscuits are burnin’!”

 

 

And I don’t just do this shit in doctor’s offices.  I take advantage of situations in all kinds of public spaces, but especially grocery stores. Things like when I get in someone’s way at the grocery store. 

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry”

Other person: “Oh no, you’re fine.”

Me: “Well I know I’m fine, but that doesn’t give me reason to get in your way!”

Or when the Black lady at Kroger handed her husband a meat tray and I caught the butt-end of their conversation.  The wife said, “this one with ‘Spicy Cracker’?”  I stopped my cart right next to them and said, “What’d you just call me?” 

That woman looked mortified, pointing to the meat tray. “No–I was talking about this!”

“I know, I know” I said, breaking down laughing. “I’m so sorry–I just saw an opportunity and had to take it!”  

I’m that person.  Michael Scott in real life.  I can’t help it.  I call it diarrhea of the mouth, because this shit just comes out.  But, really, I’m sure it’s just me making joy out of life.  Bringing everyone into a human space.  Afterall, isn’t that what we all are?  At the doctor’s office, at the grocery store, at our polling precinct.  A very good friend once called me an octopus.  He told me I reach out my tentacles and bring people together–people with whom they may never have thought would get along or even encounter in life. It might be magical powers.  Or it might just be a lack of impulse control. Either way, that brings me to one of my tenets in life:

Turn your weaknesses into your SUPERPOWERS.  

I may call it diarrhea of the mouth, but spreading that shit brings sunshine!