You know winter is near when the wood-smoke greets early morning’s walking our dog, Milo. This is now done each morning before the trip to Campbelltown hospital for radiation. It falls on me while Helvi gets ready. It includes her dressing and make-up. A woman takes much more time with those rituals. She needs patient husband. After coming home from radiation in late afternoon, we both take Milo for another walk. Milo is very fit and so are we.
Yesterday’s treatment involved as usual the same batch of patients. We sit together in the waiting rooms. A kind of conviviality has developed. We are all in the same boat. Life is precarious enough without cancer. We become even more tenacious by hanging together sharing our plights. The man with the prostate cancer confessed he had become impotent. ‘This treatment did it’, he told the room. The wife looked annoyed. ‘Is that all you ever think of’, she said? He looked to be in his late seventies. ‘No, it is not all, but I always enjoyed it’. ‘It’s a major part of me;’ the husband said proudly.
‘There is more to life than just that’, his wife replied. ‘Just think of the nice holiday we will have when going up north to the sandy beaches of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. ‘I am not talking about a holiday’, he said. ‘I can’t crack it anymore’, he added. This time he was miffed. Perhaps the wife did not give enough credit or importance to his masculine side. I too thought the wife might have handled it a bit more diplomatically.
The husband looked around the room hoping for support. I could only mumble; ‘they are different types of enjoyment.’ ‘A holiday and sex are different things’, I added optimistically. Another supporting male lifted the spirit of the husband. He seemed pleased and continued, warming up to the subject. ‘For my whole life I woke up each time with a ‘morning’s glory’, he enthused, followed by a more sombre; ‘not anymore now though.’ For the uninitiated, the morning glory refers to erection. It reminded me of another expression. A rather coarse one; ‘cracking a fat.’ This was a popular expression between trade plumbers or sewerage specialists. In the US they refer those sort of remarks to; ‘locker room talk’.
The waiting room’s atmosphere really warmed up now. Almost like a locker room. The husband looked somewhat triumphant having brazenly confessed his declining state of morning’s tumescence. The wife sighed, shrugged her shoulders. I subtracted that she might well have endured her husband’s libido for peace sake more than for her own joy. Sex is often overrated. It doesn’t get you anywhere. I often prefer a good book or a herring.
A younger female patient joined in and gave a much needed supporting sigh to the wife. ‘Those men.’ she said defiantly, ‘they are always banging on about their own things’, she said. She told the room that she has a brain tumour which had spread to her lungs and liver. She has two boys of seven and nine. After finishing her story of plight and worry, the previous issue of erections and cracking, seemed trite. ‘That’s life’, she said. She seemed happy and was accompanied by her mother. I thought, at least she will have her mother to look after the boys if she doesn’t beat her cancer. It seems such an unfair business. The room became quiet again. One hears miraculous stories of beating the worst diseases and ailments against all odds.
Let’s hope the mother of the little boys survives.
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