The Neon Nurse's Charting

My mom had to go in to the hospital for a scan yesterday. She has some kind of growth in her colon, and her doc was concerned because it had come on so suddenly--she has a colonoscopy in May and he says there was no sign of it then.

So she calls me today, saying she wanted to tap into my vast medical knowledge. I was happy to oblige, as always. Then she asks, "So what does metastasized mean?"

I'm sure I don't have to tell you how my heart stopped for a second, while my brain started right in with all the ways this was not going to turn out to be a Bad Thing, no, not at all, no way. My best mental excuse was that she was somehow pronouncing the real word she wanted ALL WRONG. (Like the time she told me my dad had had to be incubated at the hospital....)

But I gritted my teeth and told my brain to shut up and said, "It means something that has spread."

"Oh good," she chirped. "Because the doctor says my growth has NOT metastasized."

I don't think she does things like that on purpose. But MAN.