The Chair

My dad had chemo today. Lasted about 4 1/2 hours or so. He had to sit in "the chair" while they administered the treatment by I.V. "The chair" is a recliner my dad has talked about for years after one of his visits to the oncologist for his prostate. "Some people sit in that chair all day," he'd say. Now it's his turn. Apparently this particular "chair" is one of the most comfortable recliners in the world. Although tonight when I asked him if the chair was as comfortable as he'd been told it was by other patients, he said, "Nope, mine wasn't comfortable. Made my back hurt." I could have gone upstairs and lost myself inside the pages of the really good vampire huntress novel I was reading, last one in the series, but instead I asked the question. "Why wasn't it comfortable Dad?" He paused in that dramatic way he does right before taking the really long way to tell what should have been a very short story. "All the good chairs were taken." My mind slipped back to the book waiting for me upstairs. Tempting. "So Dad, of all of the really comfortable chairs for chemo patients they had in the place there's only one left, you get it and it's a bad one?" He squirmed, trying to find comfort in his own recliner, purchased right before the surgery. He still had trouble sitting without a bit of discomfort 'caused by his incision. "That's right...but you know that's the thing about Doctor Jen's patients..." And so it goes. The point is, he got through his first chemo session and was still in a fairly good mood to talk about it. On a scale of 1-10, a 5 works. Yes, we'll take it.