This morning when I woke there was only one thing on my mind - eggs Benedict. I've been thinking about eggs Benedict for something like three weeks now and this morning, knowing we'd have to go to town to have Mike's chemo pump discontinued, seemed like a good day to go out for breakfast. Over coffee in bed I announced to Mike that I was taking him to breakfast at Country Kitchen and he could have anything he wanted to eat while he watched me eat eggs Benedict.
For the past three weeks I've been thinking about this very breakfast: two perfectly done eggs, sunny side up, deep orange islands with creamy centers surrounded by a snowy sea of whites, reclined on top of a smokey slab of Canadian bacon and a crispy English muffin topped with that sunny yellow sauce of butter, lemon juice and egg yolk, served next to a perfectly brown and crispy nest of hash-brown potatoes.
Before the waitress came back with the object of my desire Mike's pump began to alarm. First a beep-beep-beep then into an alarm which can best be described as the sound a British emergency vehicle makes. We were passing the pump back and forth across the table trying to make it stop when the waitress came back with our food. My eggs Benedict were a work of art. I looked from the plate to my frazzled husband and back again. He was struggling to put new batteries in the machine. I pushed my plate aside and reached for the pump to help him open it. New batteries didn't remedy the situation. Once the machine was back on the beeping resumed. It would only be a matter of moments before the Bobbies showed up again. People around us were looking. Wondering, I suppose, why those people don't know how to work their cell phone. I looked at my plate and back at Mike. "Can we just shut it off so we can eat?" Selfish, I know but....the eggs.
The machine went off and back into it's case with an exasperated sigh. Mike picked up his fork, muttered something about the skillet breakfast being much smaller than he remembered then began to eat in silence. I took up my first bite of the "benny". The eggs were done perfectly, the sauce was very good, the bacon and muffin exactly as I'd hoped except for one thing...it was all luke warm, a bit of a disappointment. I did get my butter to melt into the hash browns and that was good. There would be no leisurely savoring of each bite. No oooooing and ahhhhing at this flavor or that texture. It would be just straight out eating and I did so without hesitation knowing Mike would want to get to the clinic to get the pump problem checked out. There wasn't much left on my plate when JoAnne brought the check. Mike had eaten everything he had but stopped short of spooning jelly out of the two packets left on his plate. The skillet didn't do much for his Incredible Hulk appetite. I knew he'd have to eat again soon. As for me, I had a full belly of wonderful eggs Benedict and I was happy, even if it was a little over seasoned with chemo and cancer.
Peace and eggs for everyone,
Karen
*The tubing had collapsed inside the pump which caused the alarm. The fixed it and sent us away for an hour. We strolled HomeDepot, had the pump discontinued and went home where Mike ate all the leftovers we had.
3 comments:
3 weeks already? Wow! Yea before you stick me in that mold with the other heartless fools, I know I don't live your life. It just seems like that went by so fast, I hope it seemed to for you also but I doubt it.
Does this mean that Mike will get the port taken out too?
Well it was 3 weeks I thought about eggs bennie. Mike just had his second round of chemo and has 6 more to go. He gets it every other week. He will get the port out at the end but that won't be till spring.
I'm guessing you read this blog with your new contacts in?
K
People can be so insensitive! IF that happens again, you could say something like...I'll bet you're wondering what's happening here. Come on over and we'll show you. Then Mike could show them. Or, you could just out and out tell them that his ostomy alarm is going off and for those that don't know what it is, just tell them his poop bag needs emptying. They don't need to know about the malfunction. Unfortunately, it won't help the idiots the next time it might happen but just maybe, it'll cause these people to think twice about staring the next time something unusual happens around them. Love ya! Becker's Mom.
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