But I couldn't help it.
It is borderline risque, forgive me.
I was invited to accompany a good friend to the doctor's office yesterday. She is having surgery.
Plastic surgery.
But it's not what you think.
Nothing is getting added.
Or liposucked.
Something is getting subtracted.
Two somethings.
No cancer or threat thereof. (Thank you, Lord!)
Just lightening a load that has burdened her for some time.
If you know what I mean.
Now that we are on the same page.
Enter me.
Not-so-mature-can-find-humor-in-EVERYTHING me.
I am going to be helping my friend recover after the surgery so she wanted me to be at the appointment so I could ask questions about what that will entail.
Because I am SO NOT a nurse.
I was prepared for the "this is what you do with the bandages" conversation.
I was even prepared for the "put on this robe so the doctor can examine you" part.
My girlfriend was good enough to prep me for that.
I wasn't prepared for illustrations being drawn on the dry erase board.
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| Of course I took a picture! |
Or the flagrant use of the word that rhymes with cripple.
(I have always not loved that word. It is just too "out there".
No beating around the bush or slipping in the back door.
Boom.
Can't handle it.)
I know, I'm naive.
The surgeon is someone my girlfriend and I know. He was an elder at a church that we all belonged to some time ago.
We trust him--professionally and spiritually.
He preciously prayed at the end of the appointment for my friend's anxiety of the surgery and for God's guidance over an issue he was concerned about involving that word that sounds like cripple.
Yes!
In prayer.
That word was dropped like it was not the bomb to my ears that it was.
Now I know that this is his business.
God made that word.
Fearfully and wonderfully.
So why not pray to him for guidance regarding altering it?
I mean, he is the ultimate physician.
It just took me off guard.
My friend said I made a noise after the word was said.
Not sure if it was a gasp
or a muffled snort
or a grunt of disbelief.
I don't remember, because I may have blacked out for a second.
To my credit.
I didn't laugh.
Not once.
That is my go-to when I am nervous.
 |
| See the sting ray? |
Or when another illustration looked like an erupting volcano.
 |
| I won't discuss what this was really about. |
That's huge.
(The non laughing, not the volcano.
Or anything else for that matter.
Ew.
I should stop talking typing.
Now.)
I didn't even laugh when the nurse told me to be careful to keep my friend's dogs away from her drain balls because they have a tendency to chew on them.
Although that may be because I was too busy throwing up in my mouth a little.
Now I will admit to chuckling when not one.
Not two.
But three.
Hear me?
THREE people asked which one of us was having the surgery.
If you knew what my front half
(that's as far as I'm taking it)
looks like compared to my friend's front half--
you would've laughed.
Or taken the nurse's temperature.
It was.
All.
Funny.
After forms were signed (that I accidentally took to the bathroom with me while my girlfriend was standing at the front desk waiting to sign. Oops!), blood tests arranged and final instructions given, we left to pick up my friend's daughter from her high school finals and the three of us went to lunch.
You know when a 2-liter of soda gets shaken and you just barely twist the cap and you can hear the hiss of the explosion that is just beneath that cap?
That was happening inside of me and I didn't even realize it.
At lunch, my girlfriend did one silly thing (believe me, she is capable of much sillier things).
She tapped her elbow on the table in melodramatic frustration over a dessert she couldn't have since she is on a diet and
KABLOOEY!
The cap of my internal 2-liter of soda was removed.
Out came all the uncomfort of the morning.
Out came the word said too much--(most astonishingly) in prayer.
Out came sting rays and volcanoes.
Dogs and drain balls.
I dissolved into a laughing howling hyena.
I laughed until I cried.
People stared.
My friend's daughter did not get it.
Like the good friend that she is, my friend joined in.
You see, the morning was no less uncomfortable for her.
Laughing until you cry is EXERCISE.
By the time my friend dropped me off at home, my eyes stung from the tears, my cheeks hurt from smiling and my ribs hurt from the howling.
I was exhausted.
It was glorious.
When you open that 2-liter of soda, right after that first hiss, there is another sound. That sweet release of carbonation.
Like a happy sigh.
Yesterday afternoon I basked in the happy sigh of a good, cathartic laugh.
Shared with a dear friend who I delight in.
Laughter is the best medicine after all.
Still laughing about this day. So glad you wrote about it. It is a day neither of us will ever forget LOL
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