I remember that weekend like it was yesterday. It was my seventh cycle of chemo and I did it outpatient. The clinic was closed on the weekend, so I had to get my two hours of chemo on the gloomy hospital wing. There were very few other patients. It was so quiet and dark. Before leaving it took forever for my nurse to put my leg brace on.
How stupid can you be? Pull the strap and secure. Hurry the fuck up. Get me out of here.
If it wasn't for the soothing sounds of raucous fans and lame announcers, I might've acted on those thoughts and yelled at her. I'm glad I didn't. It's bad enough that I felt the need to think so poorly of her. That woman was spending her Saturday on a depressing hospital floor administering chemotherapy to children. How much worse did I need to make her day?
At the tournament Mr. Spunkmeyer, our DECA advisor, wanted me to meet a friend of his. It was a young boy who had cancer. The boy's mother expected me to give him inspiration. I was hesitant at first, having no clue what to say. I finally found my balls, sat on the bleachers and told the little boy everything would be okay. In a short time his cancer would go away and he'd play basketball again. I felt ridiculous, like a fake ass cheerleader. Mr. Spunkmeyer later told me I had a very positive effect on him. If he's still alive then he's probably in middle school by now. And hopefully still playing basketball.
When the afternoon games ended, we went to the dining hall, drunk and giddy. The girl at the table next to us tripped and dropped her tray, her food flying everywhere. HollaAtYoBoy, already on his way to 20 Budweisers, laughed in her face. I tried to keep from smiling, but the harder I tried the funnier I found it. In the end, our table was laughing so loud that everyone in the room was looking over at the food sprawled over the dirty floor. That poor, poor girl.
Some friends and I continued watching games through the night, throwing empty beer cans at each other when necessary. Others went out to party. Thinking that HollaAtYoBoy didn't want to leave, they came back from the party without him. What they didn't realize was that since HollaAtYoBoy didn't go to UVA, he didn't know where I lived. When my friends went back out to get him, HollaAtYoBoy was just about to leave on a cross-state trip with strangers. His possessions, car, and ability to walk straight were still at UVA.
I got all warm and tingly when Sean actually responded with, "Thanks for the love."
At the game, Hamburgers got into some shit talking with a Tennessee fan in his fifties. Hamburgers got the final word when he made fun of the man's education with, "At least I didn't go to high school at the University of Tennessee, son!"



1 comments:
It was over a grand for the make a wish foundation...unless you took 300 off the top before you turned it in.
Zeke
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