I just got out of the hospital after developing a deep venous thrombosus in my right leg.  Yesterday when my leg was hurting and I was feeling sorry for myself, I called my older sister.  I figured if anyone knew what it was like to be in a hospital, it was her, and she commiserated with me.  Then she told me she'd gone to truck driving school and gotten licensed to drive an 18-wheeler. 

My older sister has had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and all kinds of health problems in the past but is doing fine now.  She told me she'd always wanted to learn how to drive an 18-wheeler, so she decided to sign up for a class.  Because of her health history she isn't allowed to do long-haul trucking, but she can drive locally, and right now she's looking for a job.  The stories she told me of her training would make a very funny book.  If you saw an 18-wheeler with "STUDENT DRIVER" painted on both sides, wouldn't you give it a wide berth?  Nope, they don't do that in Texas.  She told me stories about idiot drivers in Texas that sound just like some of the idiot drivers here in Oregon.

I have to admire her for doing something she'd always wanted to do, even something like learning to drive an 18-wheeler.  How many of us have things we'd love to learn about or learn how to do, but never get around to it?  My sister is 51 years old with a rocky health history, and now she's happy as a clam because she's a licensed truck driver.  She told me that being as close to death as she was in 2001 when I went to visit her last showed her that life's too short to put up with nonsense (she doesn't) and get busy and do what you'd love to do within the bounds of your ability to do it.  I'm not worried that she'll try  sky-diving, as she's as much afraid of heights as I am. 

If (excuse me, when) she gets a job driving a truck, if anyone tried to harass her they'd find that she puts up with nothing.  She might be 51, short, and white-haired, but they'll find out that she's got a temper.  She's also quite a glib speaker, and without saying anything that couldn't be repeated in a church she can put people in their place.  When she was a nurse she put touchy-feely doctors in their place, and I can't see her being afraid of a bunch of truck drivers.  Then again, most truck drivers I knew back when I worked at the Red Top Coffee Shop were good people.  There was an occasional man who felt that women didn't belong behind the wheel of a truck, but they couldn't say that the women couldn't handle the job. 

Sis spent something like five months in the hospital back in 2001, most of it with a tracheostomy.  She told me that when she was in the hospital the surgeons would come by on rounds and talk about her as though she wasn't in the room.  They apparently didn't realize that she was fully conscious, and as a nurse she understood everything they were saying, even that they thought she wasn't going to make it.  When the tracheostomy tube was removed and she could talk again (her cancer doctor said, "I don't think this is such a good idea,") she told the surgeons flatly that she didn't appreciate their bedside conversations about her right in front of her.  I know she gave them a good talking to, but it was something they needed to hear, and better they learn it as residents than later in a lawsuit. 

It's unfortunate that she's no longer able to work as a nurse, but now she's found something else she can do where her past health problems don't interfere.  I'm sure that any place that hires my sister for local trucking will be very glad they did.  I know my sister - she'd most likely be the best employee they've got.