The IN Crowd

I was reading a blog tonight and didn't need to google any words. I knew them by heart.

It is amazing the words that we couldn't spell 2 weeks ago, we can now say and recite the definition by heart. We become a walking PDR for meds, our hands are raw from the washing, and we always cough in the crook of our elbow. We learn to change bandages, figure out morphine doses, and deal with IV's.

We toss words like port and tumor markers in our conversations. We know the fast pass trick at the Emergency Room (3 little words "High Dose Chemo"). We know to steal the adhesive remover packets whenever we see them because they are like gold. We know to flush twice after chemo.

I don't want to know these things. I don't want anyone to know these things. I don't want to be in the In Crowd, that group of people that has cared for someone with cancer or been that person. I pray for the day that cancer is something we talk about in the past tense in a scary bedtime story. "When you were little, there was this horrible thing called cancer. It made people very sick. But one day, very smart people figured out how to make everyone all better and no one had cancer ever again."