A selection from
by William Martin
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this is page 176
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assured him I could handle it. "I'm not sick," I
explained. "I just have cancer. I feel fine. Come
back tomorrow when I'm cured. That's when I'll
need your chair." In the lab, I sat next to a man
who was clearly sick, and I realized once again
what a blessing it had been to have lived my first
55 years in good health/ and wondered if this
would be the last day on which I would be able to
think of myself as a healthy person.
Patricia was waiting in the room when I
returned from the X-ray lab, and she reported on
her visit with her family. Since I was scheduled
for midday, which meant she could easily see me
the next morning, she decided to go home and let
the staff members continue their work.
Aaron reappeared to give me a pill that would
stimulate my stomach to empty and administered
a Fleet enema that took care of the job the rest of
the way down. Nurse Bacero explained that,
before I would be ready to go home, my now-
empty and idle intestines would need to revive,
which could be slow to occur. "The guts," she
said, "are the last people to wake up after an operation."
An administrator gave me a sheaf of materials
to read and forms to sign, giving permission to
perform various procedures and stipulating that I
understood the various risks involved and would
not hold Methodist Hospital responsible for
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