Of Chemotherapy, Bomb Scares, and Jerry Lewis

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

In one of the early scenes of the classic film comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” the police chief, played by Spencer Tracy, aims his hat at a hatrack across the room as he enters his office. He misses the hatrack, the hat goes through an open window, and onto the street below. Just then a convertible, spotting the hat, swerves over a lane just to run over the hat. The camera then pans to the smirking driver, played by Jerry Lewis in a cameo role.

Yesterday, Eileen and I encountered our own Jerry Lewis, except he was in a Mercedes.Yesterday was the start of the third round of chemo for Eileen, and having gotten the good reports last Friday, we’re both in better spirits. The treatment, which involves her sitting with a needle injected into her hand for a good four hours, started just after 12 noon. I took the time to head back to Dagenham from Whittington Hospital in North London, just over an hour journey each way. I timed it so that I’d arrive back at the hospital by 4:30, just about when the needles would be out and she’d be cleared to go home.

When I arrived in the general area around 4:30, I noticed the bus veering off the street it would normally go to drop me a block away from the hospital. There was police security tape cordoning off that street, and when I got off the bus and walked back, the policeman I talked to said no one was being allowed to leave or enter the hospital until further notice. There were at least ten cop cars and five ambulances on the scene, not to mention helicopters overhead. Just then Eileen called to say there’d been a “suspicious package” found on the premises, and no one seemed to know when the hospital would be deemed safe again.

I went back to her house, and it was about an hour later that she phoned again to say the danger had passed, but it still took a bit of an obstacle course to get back there. When I met her in the lobby, there were about 100 packages and knapsacks stacked there that had been searched but still unclaimed. Still it was OK for us to leave, but here’s where we’d have our Jerry Lewis moment. It was by now almost 6:00, and rush hour traffic was pretty hectic. We walked a few blocks to catch a bus away from the confusion, but as we were crossing at a busy intersection, a tube of antiseptic cream fell out of her handbag and onto the crosswalk. By the time we noticed it, we were already across the street and the signal had changed. Oh well, if someone ran over it, no biggie, but we figured we’d wait it out and see if we could retrieve it. There were a lot of cars, trucks, and buses crossing there, but all seemed very cautious about whatever was in the road, and all managed to avoid it. We were marvelling at how conscientious the drivers were being. Until the light had turned yellow (after what seemed an interminably LONG green signal), that is, and a Mercedes hurriedly sped through the signal, changing lanes in what seemed a calculated effort to waste the little tube/target left in his path. A big pop said “Cream done,” and the driver’s expression had Jerry Lewis written all over it.

Just another day in London town, a town beaming from its Olympic success that the city will be paying for for many years to come. The cream is easily replaceable, the bomb scare was minimal enough that it didn’t make any news beyond local neighborhood papers, and Eileen’s day until then was just four hours sitting in a chair with needles in her hands. I guess, with all that’s going on, that we can count our blessings for the only casualty of the day being that little tube of cream. If the hospital had blowed up, there’d be more of a story, but I’d be less likely to be talking about it.

August 15th, 2012



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