Dick's Radiation & My Lesson on Lines

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Today was Dick’s first radiation treatment; one zap of high dose radiation. Plus they implanted the gold seeds for future low dose radiation treatments. A little soreness is all (and if you saw what they put in him to administer the treatment, you’d be sore just looking at it -yeekers, a tube of 5-inch needles, 16 in all). Dr. Sharma said he normally doesn’t show the patients the device since they suddenly have pain where they had none before. Somehow Dick charmed him into letting Dick see it -of course Dick had to show me. Ugggh, not a visual that I'm thrilled to now have stored permanently in my synapses.

On another note, today I learned 2 people can fit between me and the guy standing in line ahead of me. Of course, we’ve all heard about the expansive “personal space bubble” requirements in the US, compared to many parts of the world. It’s just, there’s nothing like experiencing something first hand to make it real. At first, perhaps because I was told Asians butt in line or don’t know what it means have a line, I thought of the people stepping in front of me as butting in. However, today I considered a different possibility; I’m just a foreigner standing around with a blank stare; I’m not even in line. When I got this, I realized two people could easily walk between me and the next guy without anybody touching. Then proof supporting my theory appeared. The woman behind the counter yelled, “que here” pointing at me, and suddenly everyone stood in a long (very tightly packed) line behind me .

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Comments

[anonymous]

I remember this personal space phenomena in Africa... it happened at the banks and the bus stops and every where. Like you, when I figured it out I could push and shove my way to keep in line like the rest of them... I knew that space in front of me was not personal space but someones and that I better take it if I wanted it... Luckily I like being close to people even when we were all very hot, sticky and stinky....Peace, Rudo