You can't rely on your doctor to remember to tell you every little detail before an operation or procedure. I once went in for what I'd been told was a "piece of cake" outpatient procedure. The procedure went fine. At least, I guess it did. I was unconscious. But I still had all my body parts when I woke up and that, for me, is doing fine. Then, as I was leaving, the doctor said, "Oh and remember, no stairs for the next week?"

Remember? I couldn't possibly remember, because I'd never heard that until just then, on my way home to my split-level house, with ten steps down to the bedrooms and ten steps up to the kitchen and living room. The garage is at ground level, but, strangely enough, I hadn't been planning on living in the garage for the next few days.

Doctors talk to a lot of patients. They don't always get all the information out to everyone. Plus, things can be misstated or misunderstood. "Sorry, I meant two pain pills every six hours. Did I say six pills every two hours? My bad. When's the funeral?" If only there was some technology to, I don't know, maybe record everything on pieces of paper so medical professionals could give every patient a copy. Of course, it would kill the surprise of mentioning afterward, "Oh, by the way, no air travel or solid food for the next six months. And no sex or getting out of bed. And try not to urinate."

I know doctors can write. My HMO provides written after-visit summaries. More and more lately, they include all kinds of things, "explained to patient" or "verified with patient," which never happened. One doctor even claimed he'd done a prostate exam, but I'm pretty sure I would have remembered.

Then there's the sugarcoating. For example, when doctors fry your brain with radiation, they don't necessarily tell you they're going to fry your brain with radiation. That might scare you and they don't want to scare you. They just want to irradiate you. Or in this particular case, me. I was told, "We direct pinpoint radiation straight to the tumor." And, "You might experience some slight skin redness." And, "Any cognitive decline should be indistinguishable from normal aging." (Translation: The shape you're in, who'll notice the difference.")

Then, just a few days into my 27 days of treatment, the entire left side of my face was turning red. Which was weird because the tumor was on the right side of my brain. The burning was unusual, the radiologist explained. "Just pick up a bottle of aloe vera from our pharmacy. That should help."

Strangely, the shelves in their small pharmacy held nearly a hundred bottles of aloe vera. So maybe the burning wasn't really all that unusual. By day 14 , the left side of my face had burned to a bright red glow. Santa could have used me to guide his sleigh.

And pinpoint? Turns out, "pinpoint" meant pinpoint to the tumor. From there, the radiation spread out and by the time it reached the other side of my brain and exited, it covered half my face. Which also meant the radiation went through most of my brain. That might have been a fun fact to know beforehand.

The next day, a nuclear physicist arrived in the treatment room, putting tiny devices all around my head — leaving, of course, like everyone else, when they were nuking me. "We just want to make sure you're not getting too much radiation," she said. On day fifteen. Maybe that's something else that might have been done beforehand. Doctors, of course, can't be on top of every little detail. And at least I didn't have to sleep in the garage.

Check out Barry Maher's dark humor supernatural thriller, "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon" on Amazon. Sign up for his newsletter at www.barrymaher.com.

To find out more about Barry Maher and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Marcelo Leal at Unsplash