Our Oncologist, paranoid thoughts and the baby store

It was our first trip to the Oncologist since a friend of ours died of brain cancer. Cancer is a weird thing and it’s important not to let it twist your thoughts. The (very tiny) paranoid area of my brain would freak out when I had a headache just after his death.  No, it’s just a headache and that’s why you go to the doctor to confirm that everything is OK. This was our almost two year appointment after being diagnosed with melanoma.

Because of scheduling I brought the kids with me. They’ve been to Dr. Lee’s office before, it’s on the way to Arby’s, a couple miles before the comic book store and a good halfway meeting point for grandma’s house. If you’re taking kids with you to the doctor you need to have a myriad of talking or bribery goals, just in case they’re needed.

On the highway to the doctor’s office, in an upbeat voice I said, “Hey look at that building up here on the left. Do you know what that is?”

“That’s the building that we were born in”, Jake said in as surly a tone that a five-year old can muster. It was the tone that suggests that we always ask him that, he’s tired of answering the question and he doesn’t know why we enjoy pointing that out every time we see it.

As we pulled into the parking deck there were two parking spots that were directly across from each other.

“Don’t park there’; he said pointing to the spot on the left.

That spot was bigger, less likely to dinged by neighbors and faced the exterior of the parking lot. As I pulled into that spot I asked him why he didn’t want me to park there.

“Because I don’t want you to go to the hospital to get another baby”, he said.

For the record we didn’t get another baby. Doctor Lee and his team of nurses loved seeing the boys. The doctors even pulled up the X-rays of my chest. I thought it would be a good teachable moment about the letter ‘X’, technology, doctors and so forth, but Jake simply hid under the chair while Charlie grinned at them from ear to ear.