who knew cancer could be lucky

My best friend had an extra ticket to a comedy show in Vegas this weekend. Her original guest, her boyfriend, couldn't make it at the last minute so she asked me if I would take his place, which I've done often in the past back in my pre-cancer life. With only a week's notice, I made arrangements for one of our friends to spend the night with Paul since it would be yet another 23 hour trip away for me and as he is in the middle of this round of chemo, there was no way that I was just going to leave him alone for the night. Yes, I'm neurotic but honestly, after having to witness so many of his pain episodes, there is NO way I am just leaving him alone for the night.

So with arrangements made, we trekked across the desert with her dog, Rocky, in tow. We took a bit of a side trip to Pahrump to drop off Rocky at her parents and headed over to Sin City for a night of great food, laughs and a bit of gambling for me. Since it was so last minute, I grabbed a cheap hotel courtesy of Priceline. It so happened to be at Hooters which is conveniently located near the airport where I had a flight home at the crack of dawn.

My best friend is cursed by the number 27. It appears everywhere for her and once she tells the story, you, too notice the number everywhere. So after dropping all my bags off in the room, I debate whether to go downstairs to the casino and gamble a bit. I check to see how much cash I have in my wallet and lo and behold, I had $27. Certainly a sign for me to test my luck. I hit a roullette table which has one empty chair next to all of these young kids who all just turned 21. So I put a chip on 23 and 9 (the last two numbers from Paul's CEA test) and try my luck. Nothing. I try again. Still nothing. I figure third time is the charm and voila - my $5 chip miraculously paid out $175. The guys at the table all assumed that I was playing my "boyfriend's birthday" or some such date and I informed that it was my husband's latest cancer marker test and they all yelled out "Dammmmmnnnnnn." I took my winnings and went back upstairs and tried to get a few hours sleep.

The next morning I dragged my exhausted self to the airport where I learned the flight was delayed for 2 hours. So I wandered around and decided to play the slots with the change left over from my coffee and another $40 was won. I decided it was time to just get on the plane and head home to my patient.

See cancer can be lucky sometimes.