Tuesday July 7

Just finished reading I Survived Cancer But Never Won the Tour de France by Jim Chastain. I'm not sure how I found this book, exactly. I have this morbid fascination with looking at the cancer section of my local bookstore, perhaps it just caught my eye. In any event, I'm glad I did because it was a pretty good read. His case was a lot more severe than mine, he even lost an arm, but in a sense, all cancer stories have similarities, a lot of pity from those around you, a certain loss of dignity by being put constantly into embarrassing situations, the contemplation of mortality and, of course, the throwing up.

I agree with him on nearly every point he made about life with cancer, especially the diminishing returns of the "cancer card." One area, however, I think he is dead wrong. He essentially argues that the hot nurse is a media created myth that has no basis in reality. I think this is a lie wrapped around layers of wrongness. At the cancer center where I got treated, there was essentially nothing but hot nurses, especially the blonde skinny type, which I like.

In such a situation, I'm not sure if a hot nurse is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, on a strictly shallow and superficial level, they are nice to see when you are in a poor physical state. On the other hand, however, they see you at your absolute worst. You always want to try and play it sly and cool when around attractive people, but this is impossible to do when you are on chemo. They also tend to pity you, which is probably the last thing you want from a person you are physically attracted to.

All in all, I guess it's a wash. I just wanted to point out that hot nurses do exist.