This Machine Killed Cancer

I’d like to introduce you to someone.

This is Stan, my IV stand.  While I’m in the hospital, he is my constant companion.  We are together 24 hours a day (except for when I shower…we haven’t made it to that point in the relationship yet).  That line that comes out of the picture towards the bottom left corner connects to a port in my chest that feeds directly into my heart.  Stan supplies the chemo drugs, the potassium, the sodium bicarbonate, whatever I happen to need at the time.  Mostly it’s non-stop sodium bicarbonate during the weeks that I’m in the hospital.

Stan, like most machines, is powered by electricity.  Which means he has to stay plugged into the wall most of the time.  And since I am plugged into him, I have to stay plugged into the wall most of the time.  This gets frustrating when I want to simply grab something from the other side of the room, or turn off a light switch that is just a little further than the power cord and my IV line let me reach.  I have to walk back over to Stan, unplug him from the wall, wrap up the power cord so it doesn’t get tangled in Stan’s wheels, and then I can drag Stan across the room to turn off the light switch that was only about 3 inches out of reach in the first place.  I feel like a crappy laptop computer that, in theory, can travel around on battery power but in practice has to stay plugged in almost all the time.  Also, have you ever tried plugging something in when it is dark?  I don’t know how blind people manage, because I find it very difficult.