An unstructured life

I’d asked Linda in to discuss her bone density.  The usual stuff--enough bone to get through her life but no more must be lost.  Calcium, D, exercise, drugs...

Wait!  We’ve got tears, lots of them.  What’s going on?  This can’t be just bone!

Lost job, lost love, no bones about it.  What’s the drug for lost hope?

Lest we forget

“Where did you go to college?” I asked my new patient as I glanced through the records she’d brought.

“Kent State.”

Looking up, my heart rate accelerated as I put down my pen.  She was just my age.  “Were you there when...?”

“My roommate died in my arms that day.”

New tears for innocence and a life long lost.

I've heard worse...

“I am so sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances.” The oncologist’s intro had been kind, the words that followed blunt: “undifferentiated carcinoma” “six months without treatment.”

Later, the waiter’s face was crestfallen.  “I’m afraid I have very bad news, we’re out of pate foie gras today.” We laughed so hard that we cried.