December 19, 2014. Ridgeland, MS. I Found Gold.

While dozing in my treatment room, a young man pushed an old woman in a wheelchair into the room and careful helped her into a treatment chair. She kept complaining. She was cold. She was not hungry. She was not thirsty. The nurse hooked up an IV to the old lady. I was just listening but saying nothing. She was not thriving. In 2010, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and recently her cancer had returned so she again receiving chemotherapy. But she was not doing well. She had lost 16 pounds in 8 days. The staff treated her with a saline solution because the oncologist felt she was dehydrated. When the young man returned with lunch, I started asking questions. The young man was the youngest of three sons, and the only one who was single. He lived in a small city in Tennesse and had a job he liked but when his Mother got sick again, he took a leave of absence to help her in Mississippi. It turned out they had lived for 25 years in Louisiana on the spit of land jutting out south of New Orleans. When her husband died, she returned to Mississippi, where she had been born and brought up. The son took a leave of absence from his management job but after three months, he was let go. It is all so very Mississippian. The family is more important than the job. His plan, after this series of treatments is over, is to take his Mother to live with him and sell her home in Pearl, which south of Jackson. It also turns out that the Mother is 70. Being ill does age a person. I also suspect that she was a smoker. But it was fascinating to talk with these folks. I could not help myself. I gave the lady a short course on staying warm. She was doing everything wrong. The Canadian in me knows the drill. Wear wool socks. Tuck the undershirt into your pants. Wear wool pants. Button the sweater to the top. Wear gloves and a hat outside. Trap that body heat. They seemed to listen but I wonder if they really paid attention. Eventually she stopped complaining and became pleasant. My ulterior motive was to get through to her that she has control of being warm or cool, not the hospital treatment room. We had fun, the three of us. It was my gold for the day during my treatment.