Can you hear me now?

Something rather funny happened yesterday just as I set out with our son on the 90-mile drive to Springfield to hear what the oncologist had to say

and be checked by the surgeon who removed the 12-cm tumor from his armpit on Monday.

Perhaps it wasn’t really that funny, but something about it just tickled me and I found myself giggling at odd moments for most of the day. Right now in fact, as I write this. He is sitting on the couch “What are you laughing at, Mom....”

We were supposed to leave a 9 a.m. but I told him we needed to leave a few minutes early so I could fill up the car with gas. We have sent off an application to the American Cancer Society for a gas card, but in the meantime, we’re using the green stuff.

Anyway, he got in the car and put on the headphones and fired up the portable CD player he takes with him on these long trips so he can listen to his bagpipe music. Before I turned on the radio, I could hear the music coming from the headphones – one of my favorites, in fact, Scotland the Brave. As I was coasting down the driveway, he begins to shout:

MOM, WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO GET GAS?

I turned to look at him, a bit startled.

In town, I guess – either at Caseys or Hocker Oil....

WELL, YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO SAVE 5 CENTS A GALLON IF YOU WAIT UNTIL WE GET TO MOUNTAIN GROVE. SOMETIMES IT IS CHEAPER THERE.

I realized then that he couldn’t hear his own voice and he had no idea he was shouting. Like I said, it probably wasn’t that funny, but the laughter came flooding out like water pouring through a hole in the dike.

And as it happened, gas was not cheaper at Mountain Grove – at least not at the stations along the highway.

And it also happened that the oncologist surprised us by telling us there is a drug that may be able to help stop the melanoma coming back in his brain, a drug that is very well tolerated, and he will begin oral chemotherapy with this drug in about 3 weeks. So, I definitely had something to laugh about on the way home.