High Fructose Cancer

There are many silver linings to having cancer.  This week's cancer blessing came in the form of my body hair never growing back after shaving on Monday.  I am one silky lady!  I keep inviting Dan to stroke my armpits.  Other perks include justified napping, exemption from cat litter duties, and receiving care packages.

For the record, I am fluent in all five love languages, but receiving gifts is probably my strong suit.  I have been given so many sweet gifts since my diagnosis: owl pajamas, flower bouquets, a can of sardines and an orange, knife earrings, a cat painting, essential oil, jars of honey, frankincense, a book of haiku, tiny felted gnomes, a purple snail, remote Reiki, a candle made of kitten toots, snap pea crisps, a necklace etched with French profanities, delicious home-cooked meals, a salt lamp, and a string of heart garland--to name but a few!!  Oddly, the most common gifts I receive are coloring and activity books.

 Because I'm 5.

Nearly every week that I go into the Cancer Center, the nurses send me home with a care package put together by some local organization or school.  Last week I got a pair of fuzzy socks, a tube of chapstick, a pencil, and an assortment of terrible snacks.  Now here's where I turn into an ungrateful asshole.  Why are my chemo nurses giving me care packages full of Tootsie Rolls and Kit Kat bars? Why do all the snacks in the infusion room have high fructose corn syrup in them? Why are all my phlebotomists 300 lbs?  Why did my nurse offer me a Pepsi my first night in the ER?  Why am I more concerned about the effects of sugar than my dietitian?  Whyyyyyyyyyy?

These are the questions I ponder on the daily.  I get myself kinda worked up.  After I leave the Cancer Center, I always stop at the grocery store across the street before I head home.  I stand in line with my basket of organic kale and pumpkin seeds and hemp milk and I look at the overflowing carts ahead of me.  I get reeeeal judgmental.  "God damn Velveeta cheese!" I mumble.  "For heaven's sake, six boxes of Little Debbie!" I think disdainfully.  It's hard not to be mad that 17 years of vegetarian eating and general enthusiasm for healthy living did not save me from cancer.  I like to take it out silently on the shoppers in front of me, momentarily assuming that despite eating Hot Pockets for dinner 7 days a week, God has granted them immunity from disease and has instead chosen to strike me down.

By the time I pay for my groceries, my sensibility is restored and I soften to the idea that no one's life is free of hardship.  Velveeta-eaters have their own problems, cheese-derived or otherwise.  I remember the silver linings and I accept that this is my path.  I get the chemo, I eat the kale, I reject the Kit Kat, I count the blessings.