Community

April 26, 2010

Saturday morning Jeremy and I were at the grocery store and I spotted a familiar face. "Jeremy, that's Jim, one of the nurses from the GI lab. Remember him?"

During the period of time that I was doing my weekly dilations at the GI lab, Jim was one of the folks who almost felt like family to me. He called me by name every time he saw me. He told me once, "We all think you're the cat's meow. You have such a positive attitude with all you're going through."

Jim must live in our neighborhood as I had seen him carrying dogfood outside of Petsmart once and Jeremy and I actually pulled up next to him at a stoplight once too. But still I was surprised that he recognized me at the grocery store Saturday morning. I was still wearing my Friday make-up smudged under my eyes a bit I'm sure, a ballcap, and my run-around clothes. As we approached each other with grocery carts leading the way, he smiled and initiated the conversation.

"It's been good not to see you for a long time! How're you doing?" he asked.

I told him I was doing really well. He commented on how healthy I looked. I told him I'd be back at the clinic in August for my annual scoping so I'd see him then. He talked to Jeremy liked I wasn't there, "She must be doing good. She looks good." He said to me, "You went through some tough times there, didn't you?" I agreed, but reassured him I was doing well.

On our way home I told Jeremy, "I think Jim thinks my weekly dilations were a trial for us. Isn't that funny? I mean, they weren't pleasant, but compared to everything else I've been through, that was nothing." Jeremy reminded me that there were a couple of times that the procedure was quite painful for me. And yes, I do remember yelling once, but that's the beauty of conscious sedation drugs - you don't remember afterwards! But I suppose Jim heard my yells first hand because he was often the nurse in the room with me when the procedure was being done. So yeah, it makes sense that he would consider the dilations a trial because he didn't have the drugs to make him forget.

Seeing Jim made me feel so good on a couple of levels. One, it was good to be able to show someone who saw me in a not so good state how well I am doing now. And two, it gave me this warm feeling of belonging to a community of people who care.