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14 june 2002

small hair, full price

the tell-tale mushroom

Dinner. Last time we left our she-ro, she was at dinner with the swell folk with whom she went trap shooting.

Have you ever had dinner with a bunch of medical people, and you're about as medical as...you know...a patient? It's pretty funny, if you can keep everything down, pay attention, and keep everything down. I also realize that I was in the company of medical professionals who also happened to be well-rounded people, which makes all the difference. They know how to talk about a bunch of stuff. That's a pretty good skill.

When I was a kid, Mom was all about "proper" dinner conversation. Whenever the topic veered toward some of the things careening through my little mind (a.k.a., gross stuff), she'd give me the squirrelly eye and state, "not at the table, dear. We're eating." I carried this into my adulthood, and do my best to not talk disease and injuries when there's food within a ten-yard radius. Of course, on occasion I do forget myself and subsequently cause a mass exodus of appetite.

Whatever. They'll get over it.

I guess when you go to medical school, your comfort level with...shall we say, traumatic...conversation, ramps up a few thousand points. Like, the server could bring you a noodle salad, stroganhoff, tapioca pudding, and a bloody mary; and you can down it without skipping a beat during a conversation about last night's lacerated liver operation. No problemo.

The other part of this is that your IQ will increase by at least 30 points by sheer vocabulary osmosis. For example, I am now dying to drop the word "hypotonic" into a casual conversation with friends. So far, I have been unsuccessful. I am not, however, hypotonic. That would be a bad thing.

So dinner comes, and everything seems to be going pretty well, in part because I had the good sense to pore over Mom's nursing books when I was a teenager. (I lived in a small town with not much to do. Be quiet.) I was enjoying my raisin-glazed balsamic portobella mushroom dish, when suddenly the conversation turned to cardio-thoracic surgery, intubation, and other abdominally-related mayhem.

I could swear to you that my mushroom went lub-dub.

It was all I could do at certain moments to maintain a healthy color in my face. Seriously. I felt about as white as...well, whiter than usual. While I'm most interested in what we're talking about, I also find myself having a rather physical reaction to some of the details. While my brain is at the table, my stomach pushed back about fifteen minutes ago.

Now, I have never seen any of this stuff up close and personal. Nonetheless, to me, these pictures write themselves to my overactive imagination, and it sort of becomes personal. I'm surrounded by people who have cultivated this great gift of caring enough to spend their lives dedicated to the health of others, while detatching themselves just enough to do what needs to be done.

That is, I get woozy watching someone's hand bleed. I'd hit the floor in two seconds flat if I had to stitch it up. People like me definitely belong on the consumer end of the healthcare industry.

There goes the mushroom again. I've ordered the tell-tale heart. Yummy.

What's worse is that my morbid sense of curiosity kicks in, I find myself asking questions, and listening to the answers. Gah! Brain is still hungry. Stomach is giving Brain the middle finger.

I discreetly push away the mushroom and ask for a to-go box. I lean forward some more. As dinner choices go, I think I made the right one. Sometimes, I'd rather enjoy who's around the table than what's on it.