pity

Cancer is a funny thing.

I keep getting the feeling that people are looking at us and assessing our situation and offering glimpses of pity. I wouldn't expect that, as I would expect that in the medical environment so many people are in similar situations that they are just used to it, that they treat it with a sort of clinical professionalism, something that doesn't leave room for pity. But then someone gives a look that says something like "that's a shit break guys, I'm sorry."

I swear I'm not making it up. Yesterday morning when we were getting prepped for Sara's first surgery and the team came to introduce themselves, there were two doctors who were around my age (correction, one of them was a medical student), and they both kind of gave me the creeps. They did not exude enough confidence and professionalism to assure me that they weren't going to be sitting in the operating room thinking "boobies." At least, not at first. But then the one guy, the actual doctor, he shot me this fleeting look as if to convey that he couldn't believe how rotten our luck was, and that he fully sympathized. And that if there was a subtext to the look it was that he was trying to assure me, telepathically, that he wasn't going to be thinking "boobies." Perhaps I read too much into things.