Poker face

“You know, there’s this really great support group at a church in town. You may get something out of it” she said. Roxanne had startled me, I was zoning out in the chair. I removed my headphones, retracted the extendable arm of the TV, turned and gave her my full attention.

“Do I look to you like I need to go to a support group?” I asked. “I’m the last one in this room who needs that.” I subtly pointed out the people around me, nodding my head in their direction. “I mean, look around.” All around me were cancer patients, attached to bottles and tubes getting chemo, plasma and god knows what. They looked very sick. I was the only non-cancer patient in the infusion center, there for an anemia deficiency. I thought I looked pretty good in comparison.

“Bill, you’re carrying around an awful lot of baggage, you can deny it all you want but this is what I do. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to someone.” I didn’t question Roxanne’s pedigree, she was good at her job. She knew all of her patients that had walked in after me, enough to hug them and in some cases elicit tearful responses. This was my first time at the infusion center and I felt like I have known her for twenty years. She was older yet youthful, matronly but attractive, professional but very comforting. I had come in expecting a simple shot, I was to find out that I was to be seated for a 90-minute infusion. In the time it took her to swab my arm, insert my IV and hook up the bag she had extracted my entire medical and personal history. She was very easy to talk to. I felt like she knew me. But did she know me enough to tell me I need help dealing with my apparently visible emotional baggage?

The problem is that I think I’m doing pretty good with everything. A lot has happened, and I have lost a lot of what is dear to me. But I roll on, in my family tradition and I try to stay positive. In doing so I make an effort to concentrate on my body language and facial expressions. Beneath it all, I am a control freak through and through. If I look like I am handling it, then I am handling it. What goes on in my mind will not show on my face.  I’m not feeling bad for myself, I don’t ask anyone for anything and I don’t want pity. “Why me?” is not part of my lexicon.

It never occurred to me that maybe I’m not pulling it off as well as I thought. Maybe only someone like Roxanne, the infusion center cougar, whose job it is to provide relief and comfort to the truly sick among us, can see through it. Or maybe I’m just kidding myself. Maybe I should talk to someone.

I always thought I was a good poker player. I won a lot of tournaments. Until one day I played with my friend Jeff. He called all of my bluffs and beat me handily. It turns out I have a lot of “tells” that he picked up on. If I don’t have the poker face I thought I did, then maybe Roxanne is right. I mean, it can’t hurt, right?