Life's a gamble

By Len Morgan

"We all have shortcomings.  If I like to gamble, so what!  It brings a little excitement to an otherwise lackluster day, week, month...

For a brief few moments, I'm about to be a winner!  And, then my hopes are dashed; occasionally it happens and I'm king of the world.  But, it falls short of a real high.  Then, I'm back to the mundane, the urbane, the boring, because real life sets in faster each time." 

"So, what's the point Doc?"

"Mr. Carmody, take a seat, please.  It's bad news I'm afraid…”

“Is it ever good news?”

 Is there somebody you would like with you for support..."

"I've got nobody currently, no one who gives a dam.  So you might as well just give it to me!"

"I'm sorry to tell you that you have lung cancer."

‘I have cancer and he's sorry...  Now, why doesn't that ring true?’

"You will be pleased to hear that it hasn't metastasized." 

‘Why can't they just say it's not spreading?’

"How bad is it Doc?"  ‘You sit there pronouncing a death sentence on me, where's your black cap, I'd like to smear your news all over your face you smug bastard’.

"I'm afraid it's stage 3, Mr Carmody."

‘Stage 3, stage what?’  "What the fuck does that mean! 3 of 10, 3 in a hundred?  How many stages are there?"

"Without chemotherapy, you have six months to a year." 

"And with?"

"Two to three years.  Maybe as long as five.  Surgery might be an option, we'll know more when the results of your latest scan and a biopsy are available.  I'm really sorry that the news isn't better..."

"Really!"  ‘Really sorry?’  "Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better."

The Doc presses and holds a button on his desk, "Nurse Reynolds, we have another...  Patient who is in need of your sympathetic ear."

‘Which ear is that I wonder?’  "Well, nurse Reynolds, tell me, it's a bad dream and I'll wake up in the morning and it will all be gone."

"In your dreams Mr. Carmody, but look on the bright side, we're all going to die, it's just a question of when.  You're lucky you won’t grow old and crotchety, you won’t be going senile..." 

"And you Nurse Reynolds could leave the hospital this evening and get run over by a No.9 bus; that's life eh! Nurse Reynolds?”

“Please don’t cry Nurse Reynolds, it will never happen; your sympathetic ear would hear it coming?”  ‘Anyway, the No. 9 doesn’t pass Southend Hospital…’