Young man

“Here’s your ticket, young man, and have a nice day!” said the smiling attendant at the Jackson St. entrance to the Strong Hospital parking-garage.
“I bet I’m older than you are,” I said to myself as I motored into the garage.
At least this is better than being knighted. Teenyboppers always call me “sir.”
The Jackson St. entrance to the Strong Hospital parking-garage has automated ticket-dispensers. But that entrance was closed for renovation.
Entering traffic was being detoured through half the exit, and a lady was dispensing tickets.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
Right now she’s having a very hard time.
The cancer, expanding lymph-nodes in her abdomen, was restricting her ureter-tubes, kidney-to-bladder.
One kidney was just about dysfunctional, and both kidneys were bloated.
The cancer was also constricting blood-return from her legs, causing swelling.
We’ve been to Thompson Hospital’s Emergency-Room in nearby Canandaigua five times.
On three visits my wife was given blood-transfusions for anemia; very low red blood-cell count.
The fifth time she was transferred to Strong, where she received her first cancer-treatments three years ago.
Strong — Wilmot Cancer Center — had been doing follow-up.
As soon as she arrived, they installed stents in her ureter-tubes.
Stents are expandable stainless-steel reinforcements that opened up her ureter-tubes.
And they managed to do both. We were expecting at least one outside drain to a bag. It’s all inside, and kidney-function is returning.
So now it was my turn to visit her in the hospital.
17 years ago it was me with my stroke.
She’s a wreck, but lucid, and I recognize my wife.
I’ve experienced this “young man” jazz all my life.
Years ago I’d walk into the Mens Room at Regional Transit early morning before pulling out a bus, and some compatriot would say “How are you, young man?”
“Fiddlesticks,” I’d say. “I’m older than you.”
I’d meet Kevin Frisch, Managing Editor of the Mighty Mezz, and he’d ask “How ya doin’, young man?”
“Come-on, Kevin,” I’d say; “I’m older than you.”
I guess I should expect it.
People always think I’m about 55, and are dumbfounded when I tell them I’m 67.
I look in the mirror and see a little old man with thinning gray hair.
To me I’m old, not young.

• “Strong Hospital” is one of three large hospitals in the Rochester (N.Y.) area. It’s on the southeast side.
• “Thompson Hospital” is the hospital in nearby Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS). My stroke ended it.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over five years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years after my stroke.