Super Scrubs

"I've just been told there were some emergency peanuts that just came in on an ambulance?" "Peanuts? Oh you must mean patients..." "No no, I certainly do not, my blue lady friend (couldn't find the word for nurse...), I definitely mean peanuts - I heard they were brought in because they got assaulted..." "Oh... that's a joke..."

...Was the first conversation I had as I squinted my eyes open the way a new born baby does as it's torn out from it's safe slimy cocoon out into a viscous and crude world. Although in the nurse's defense, a new born's sense of humor is surely better than mine at this point.

"Jeez lady," I thought to myself, "forgive me for trying to lighten the mood after getting one of my nuts butchered off... It's cool though, I'll be over here being the asshole, no worries."

It seems to me that if you're gonna get ball cancer, the most appropriate thing to do right off the bat is make nut jokes. But hey, I'm just the new guy in Cancerville, I'm still trying to figure out the culture. Weather forecast shows cloudy with a chance of womp womp around here. But listen up Cancerinos, I'm here to switch up the game, baby! I've got me a testicle left (actually, it's the right if I'm being honest) and according to my doctor, it'll pick up the slack of the other one gone, which means I got a super nut, and I'm ready to get you all preggers with some mad chuckle buns. So ready your ovens, Cancerinos, cuz there's a new mayor in town - that's awkward, I sure hope mayors don't go impregnating their new townsfolk, but i digress.

All the same, maybe it's just this one lady who doesn't quite get my approach to dealing with this new life, so we'll give her a pass for the meantime. Now she's transferring me from the recovery room to the first wing where I checked in initially. As they cart me through the halls I'm going "Rrrrrr ::shift gear:: Rrrrrrrrr ::shift gear:: Rrrrrrrrrr ::shift hear::" Meanwhile, I can hear the blue lady's thoughts going "Gee, there're no pills in this place that'll make me do that, are we sure they operated on the right body part?" - relax lady, it's called Indy 500 and I'm in first place on mile 499! How does my exhaust taste??

The problem is though, I've just been transferred from Grumpy Smurfette's room to Grumpy-er Smurfette's room, cuz this lady ALSO ain't drinking my cool-aid.

"Good morning, how are you feeling?" "Psh! Like a million bucks, ready to strap on some Nikes and shoot a tennnis-shoe commercial! God knows I'm lighter!"

::Nurse turns to girlfriend:: "Ah sarcasm, eh?" - "He's worse when he's not on drugs," Noelle bites back at the nurse with an even sharper tone of sarcasm. Thanks bro, I know you got my back! "Alright, then... I'll be right back with the doctor..." and off pranced the stage hand to Cue Dr. Faisal Ahmed!

If I may, I'm starting to sense a pattern here. It occurs to me that perhaps these nurses, these doctors, they don't lack a sense of humor, but rather have developed an exquisitely sophisticated defense mechanism whereby any emotion is disarming and in turn hindering to their ability to carry out their ultimate purpose successfully. Believe it or not, there is a beauty in this method, that though foreign to me, I find fascinating.

In comes the Doc with a slightly nervous look on his face as if running his lines in his mind. "Dr. Ahmed!" - I beat him to the punch - "You, sir are a gentleman and a scholar!" and extended my hand out with great joy! Pause: if you're a guy, you'll have moments when you shake another person's hand and wonder, "shit did i wash my hands after i peed earlier??" Often followed by, "well I'm sure they didn't either and now we're both walking around with a cocktail of hot dog water on our hands." And as ritual had it, so was my thought as Dr. Ahmed extended his hand out to me. Pause again: this dude literally just spent the last hour fondling my nuts, we're working with the same hot dog water, it's aaaaall good. Doc visibly scrolls through his lines behind his eyes and gives some standard run of the mill doc talk: "procedure perfect, orchiectomy, testicle, scalpel, bio degradable stitches, wound glue, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit." - Nod in agreeance, Doc with confused look, me with big fat stupid grin over the thought of "usually I'd ask for dinner before what we've been through, I guess you're the one that got away."

If you've ever watched "Scrubs" you'll know that right around now, it's time for a takeaway. I'm no superman, if anything, regardless of their utter lack of sense of humor, the heroes of the story here are all dressed in blue. I can't imagine it ever being easy to tell other human beings bad news for a living, even for a super hero. So if they can look back on this day and remember, that sometimes not even cancer can kill a man's spirit, then maybe, just maybe, they can go another day diagnosing this terrible disease. To all you dressed in scrubs, I salute you.