“What a nifty idea!”

So here we are last Monday (November 12, 2007) in the chemo clinic of Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester so Linda can begin Round Three of her R-CHOP anti-cancer chemo.
That day she received the Rituxan only, the “R” in the R-CHOP. It’s my third time there that day, and I am at her side. The Rituxan is being slowly trickled into an intravenous in her arm. (The CHOP will be administered the following day.)
A little old man waddles in, and takes a seat in a throne across the way, here to receive chemo himself; his comely young daughter at his side.
“When were you born?” a nurse asks.
“February 24, 1944,” little old man says.
“Well,” I think; “same age as us — a hair younger.”
Linda’s Rituxan is bog-slow, so I decide to leave again and go home. Linda will call me to come get her — our so-called “mutt” is abandoned in the house.
Nearing finish, Linda takes out her cellphone and calls me.
“What a nifty idea,” little old man thinks. “Call someone without being tied to the landline network.”
“I gotta get me one of them cellphones,” he says to daughter.
Daughter unholsters her tiny cellphone, and punches in a number that displays on the tiny screen.
“Dad, can ya read that?”
“No.......”
Daughter hands over the cellphone to Dad; a cellphone with buttons the size of matchheads.
“Dad, can ya see those buttons?”
“No.......”
Too bad I wasn’t there.
“Baloney!” I would have said.
“We’re older than you, and both driving cellphones,”
“I’m sure ya can work out something. Our cellphones don’t have matchhead keys, and if ya have to use reading-glasses to read the display, ya use reading-glasses. Same as the newspaper.”
“If ya wanna use a cellphone, ya probably can.”
“Anyway, since when do ya see a pay-phone anymore?”

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. She has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable.)

“CHOP” is Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin (I don’t know where they get an “H” for this), Oncovin (trade-name for Vincristine), and Prednisone, a steroid. “Vincristine” is what makes your hair fall out; she is hairless.

RE: “February 24, 1944.........” —I was born February 5, 1944; and Linda was born January 2, 1944.

“Our so-called ‘mutt’” is “Killian;” a rescue Irish-Setter. My blowhard, macho brother-from-Boston calls him a “mutt,” as a put-down.