Sunday, October 16, 2011

Turn Your Key, Sir!

Most people seem to be rather familiar with the hit 1986 Matthew Broderick flick, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." This is ok, but rather unfortunate as it completely overshadows the far superior Matthew Broderick film from three years earlier, "Wargames."

The premis of the film is that the American Government was losing faith in the ability of their soldiers to launch nuclear missiles upon command due to ethical uncertainties and their own personal fears. This uncertainty is displayed during the first scene of the film, where two soldiers are working in a bunker when they get a command on one of their main screens. They open up their books and decipher the command, and to their astonishment it's to launch their missiles immediately. Now to do this, they have to stand on opposite ends of the room, and each insert a key and simultaneously turn them, preventing any one man from launching the missiles. To build the premise of the film, one of the officers is ready to go, but the other one is hesitant, so the first officer pulls out his side arm and yells, "Turn your key, Sir!"

Man. It's such a good movie.

But there is a point to all of this, and it has to do with the chemotherapy. Chemo is really bad stuff. When the nurses are working with it, they wear special gloves and protective clothing. It was created for one purpose, and that purpose is to wipe out every last fast growning cell on a biblical scale. They don't want to give this to anyone lightly, or by mistake, so they have a system set up to prevent this.

Two nurses walk in. One holds the chemo and stands next to the computer. The other one walks over to me and reads my armband.

"Please state your full name."

"Bulwyf Amadeus Sarcophagus Broclergaard"

The nurse at the computer gives a nod of the head.

"Please state your date of birth"

"Born under the second moon, after the storms of spring."

The nurse next to me then reads my ID number:

"X23 F5 493 01"

The other nurse repeats.

"X23 F5 493 01"

It looks like I'm the one that's supposed to get this chemo!

It's a pretty sweet system and makes me feel like I'm living in the cold war, so I'm for it.

2 comments:

Asbjørn said...

I just found your blog through a reference on DXM, and I've gotta say, you're handling this remarkably well. I'm about your age and I doubt I'd be able to find the energy to deal with all the fear, uncertainty and doubt that comes with illness like yours.

I really hope the cancer sees your attitude and goes "shit, better get outta here".

- A reader from Denmark

Bunny said...

When I had radiation everyday for six weeks, they would ask name, birthday and compare me with a photo... Who would sneak in for someone else's inner sunburn treatment?