Busting A Gut Over My Sister's Gut

My sister and I have a somewhat new tradition of trying to get together every month for dinner, where we can nibble and nosh on such appetizers as jobs, kids and families.

However, with my sister's rectal cancer diagnosis a few months back, our dinner-time conversations lately have focused more on chemo, ostomy supplies and side effects. Fun stuff, I'm tellin' you, and I can only imagine what people around us must be thinking if they could only overhear our talks.

Last night, while sitting at our local 54th Street Bar & Grill, we were discussing some pretty intimate stuff at a decibel level of 125, as the restaurant was very loud and very crowded. Sis is open to questions about how things all "work" in her body - or how they don't work, depending on what part we're discussing - and she decided to give me a graphic anatomy lesson.

Grabbing the straw wrapper (educational supplies are somewhat limited in a 54th Street Bar & Grill, after all), she proceeded to lay out her colon, as well as her rectum...and in case I wasn't overloaded with too much information by this point, she tore off a little, teeny, tiny bit of straw wrapper and used it for her ostomy bag:



She then grabbed her black straw and used it as her pointer, because all good teachers must have a pointer, don't ya' know, and so there, in a crowded and crazy and noisy bar, I learned everything I ever wanted to know about how her body eliminates waste through the ostomy bag.

Fascinating stuff, I'm tellin' ya...and when I realized what we were doing, I couldn't help but get the giggles...and before we knew it, we were both sitting there, busting our "guts" (sorry - couldn't resist an anatomical pun at this point!) with laughter at the absurdity of our situation.

I think we laughed until we cried.

Sometimes, the best medicine isn't a bunch of chemotherapy drugs dripping through a port...but a good old-fashioned dinner with your sister, busting a gut over her gut.

Peace.