half-joking/half-serious

It was kind of a weird Christmas for me this year. There were the usual elements - presents, food, family, friends, etc., but the thing I can't get over was not exactly a traditional holiday moment.

Grandpa, sporting mummy-like head bandages, had just been to the doctor to have cancer removed from his ear. (It seems like it wouldn't be Christmas with our family unless cancer was in some way involved). They grafted skin from his neck to replace the chunk of ear they'd removed, so his entire head was like one big bandage. On top of that, his being on blood thinners caused what little skin was visible to be a dark purple bruise. All morning Lindsay kept saying "poor Grandpa" and we all agreed. Poor Grandpa.

Near the end of the day he half-joking/half-serious requested I change his bandages, surely expecting me to be too grossed out. But I accepted, curious to see what was actually underneath all that gauze.

I think the "gore" of it bothered everyone in the room to some degree. Lindsay especially didn't like my "your neck looks like they stitched up raw hamburger" comment. I did my best to cover everything and tape it securely but comfortably. The only reason I can think of for my not being bothered by that kind of stuff are the EMT trainings my dad taught. Some nights I'd get to go with him and if I wasn't playing in a wheelchair, I was browsing the training manuals, looking at the pictures of a man with a pencil sticking out of his eye, or a metal pipe coming out of his side, or third degree burns, or broken legs. The existence of pain and injury has always been a distorted sort of normal.

Anyway, that night I looked up what it would take to become an ER/trauma nurse or something similar. Half-joking/half-serious.