When I was a little girl I went through a phase where I wrote a poem for everything. Some good friends of my father's, the Knuppenburgs, had just added a Tiki Bar to their estate. My stepmother owned a bar so I was no stranger to the bar business, but
I had no idea what a Tiki Bar was, and for some reason that was enough to inspire a poem. So I retreated to my room for a bit and came back eager and proud to show off my work.
It was titled The Tiki Bar. The lines were simple and silly and
went something like:
Where you order up beers
And to drink your fears
At the Tiki Bar
Where the pretty faced ladies
Drink to their maybes
At the Tiki Bar
etc....
Whether I
was just so cute at the age of 10, or I was a poetic genious ahead of my time, they thought my poem was funny enough to frame and hang above the Tiki Bar. It actually still hangs there today.
Years and years later, after my own bout with cancer my father
received the news that Butch Knuppenburg was also diagnosed with cancer.
Since I understood the importance of a good laugh while in treatment, I called my Dad and anounced that I was coming out of retirement, and stepping back into the ring, to write
one more poem for Mr. Knuppenburg.
Between classes I sat down on a comfy chair on campus and I followed the original format of the Tiki Bar poem for nostalgia, and produced this beauty:
The Cancer Ward
Upon arrival you are given, essentially, a napkin for clothes.
Then they shove a small hose up your nose.
At the cancer ward
And then they insert a tube, in a place I don't want to say.
The funny part
is, apparently, you get better this way
At the cancer ward.
Toxic chemicals rush through your veins.
The best part is they give you narcotics for pain.
At the cancer ward.
Nurses measure every ounce of urine you expel.
Then calculate the water you drank by amount, color, and smell.
At the cancer ward
You'll make a a friend or two in the waiting room, whether you want one or
not.
One major advantage, you can now legally smoke pot.
At the cancer ward.
One last thing that unites cancer patients with a bit of a scowl.
All of us, every last one, has had problems with our bowels.
At the cancer ward.
--Becky Busch
October 15, 2012
I guess you could say I am the Dr. Suess of medical poetry. (or as least I will say that about myself) :)
I shared this
with friends and family, and at the request of my father, I shared it with my physicians as well. I few weeks later my cancer buddy, Tom, sent me this:
Watch out Robert Frost
take your Road Not Taken and get lost
Becky brings the rhymes on things that really matter
Like tiki bars and colon cancer
Surgery, radiation and chemo can be really tough
Even when you are on the baby stuff
To young to know what she does
about death and life
All of it's beauty, challenges and strife
Yeah, Becky has been through hell
But is back and doing better than well
So as you can see one poem can certainly inspire another! (Thanks
Tom :))
The next time a loved one is under the weather, maybe try cheering them up with something silly. I know for me, I appreciated the funny cards just as much (sometimes more) as the sentimental ones.