I’m sitting in the waiting area of the cancer centre pharmacy.
It’s -11°C outside, but inside it’s roasting. Also inside me, I guess, since I have a fever. Not a terrible fever, but enough to make the coloured light on the thermometer change from green to yellow when displaying the numbers. Enough that I had to pay a visit to the friendly neighbourhood hospital for them to steal more of my blood and swab my nose to figure out what part of me is currently infected.
I’m wearing a hoodie that I have to unzip, clutching my winter coat and sling bag in my lap. You know, we used to just call this thing a “fanny pack”, but marketing teams worked hard to ease the egos of men wearing them across their bodies and rebranded them. I don’t hear many people calling them “man purses” anymore either, for the better. Why has the need to carry things been conscripted into battles of gender/sexuality? Am I supposed to carry my wallet, keys, phone, all the charging cables I might need, a book, and an 18 oz. HydroFlask in my pockets? Seeing as I no longer wear JNCO jeans (yes, I did have one pair in the ’90s), I’m not sure what other option I have.
I’m sorry—I got distracted.
A woman enters the pharmacy and joins the queue. She’s wearing a black puffer coat, and has very long blonde-turning-to-grey hair under her toque. I always pay attention to people’s hair now.
She’s not wearing a mask. I imagine that’s going to change.
She steps up to the counter, gives her name. The pharmacist opens the drawer and finds the tray with several blue pill bottles and the stack of scripts bearing their names, instructions, and prices. The pharmacist asks if she’s ok to go through them and be reminded of what the person who prescribed them has undoubtedly already told her. Their names, when to take them, how much to take. She laughs when he says, “This one is also for nausea.” “Why do I need multiple nausea meds?” she asks. He takes a beat before answering her.
When she leaves the pharmacy, she partially covers her mouth, from the side, like she’s trying to block the germs emanating from the rest of us seated here. I’m hacking up a lung, but at least I’m wearing a mask; the older gentleman further in the queue, not so much. Part of me wants to be offended. The other part is just thinking, that hand’s not going to help you much when your b-cells are wiped out by what’s coming next.
If only I had known they could fit multiple volumes of Barth's Dogmatics, I would have kept my JNCO jeans from when I was a kid.