Chemo Update

[Elspode]

Right on, Spud! Here's to the start of a cancer-free life. Here's a little story for you all...please, next time I start bitching about something, remind me how insignificant my problems are compared to other people's?

A guy I've just started working with this week asked me how I was today, so I started pissing and moaning about work stress, my kids, poverty, crappy cars and such. He was *so* nice, smiling, telling me about how his kids were at that age (he's about 65), listening to my concerns, and obviously trying to make me feel better.

Then, while talking about how great his kids turned out, he casually mentioned his wife's terminal cancer, and her dire prognosis, and all the chemo and radiation and surgeries she'd been through fighting it. I felt about two inches tall. I mean, who the fuck am I to whine about the stupid shit I was laying down, while this guy stands on the verge of losing his wife of 40 years, and still has a smile and a kind word for a relative stranger? I have a healthy family, a nice house, cars that usually run and food in the cabinets, and this man is going to lose everything that means anything to him someday soon...

I've got to try harder to be a better person.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Elspode

I've got to try harder to be a better person.

No you don't.

1) you're one of the most empathetic people I've come across
2) If Selene was terminally ill, would you really want people to pussy-foot around you and not mention anything that wasn't perfect in their lifes, just to try and spare you further pain? Or because they felt your pain made theirs unimportant? By telling him your woes and minor(ish) greivances, you probably gave him a few minutes to forget his own pain.

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by monster

No you don't.

I've *had* my own crises, and crises with my eldest child in more than adequate measure, that's for sure, so it isn't as though I don't know true despair and pain. Its just that, all things considered, my life is probably the best it has ever been right about now, and that's saying a lot...yet still I fall into these bummer moments. Then, when someone who has *real* problems comes around, it just jolts me.

I don't know how the guy can be such a cheerful, open fellow with all he's got going on in his life. I'd be such a basket case if Selene was in the condition his wife is in. Just considering the prospect of her no longer being with me on this plane almost makes me cry.

I just wish Life didn't have to make people suffer so much, you know?