Disease Happens

I found this amazing woman; Annie the Knitting Heretic who writes about my emotional life, as if she were living it. But she's not. But them again, she kind of is.

The details aren't the same. But the feelings? The fears. The hopes. Like me, Annie's husband Gerry has cancer, Multiple Myeloma in his case.  She stopped by my blog to comment one day and I then went to read hers. Am I glad I did.

She says:

"God, I get sick of explaining this.

'We are a society that is in denial.  When folks ask about Gerry and I explain the disease and the prognosis, the response is, "Don't believe the worst!  Have Hope!  Things can change!"  Lovely sentiments, but I believe they're being said more for the benefit of the cheerleader than for our benefit.

"I don't think we ARE believing the WORST. We're being realistic. Yes, things CAN change, and we both hope they do. Desperately.

"But hope is expensive. The energy and concentration it takes for us to make each day as rich and full as possible - to get everything out of life that we can - just about saps our resources. There isn't a lot left over for hope (false, or otherwise) so we just live realistically and - yes - hopefully. But we don't base our lives on hope . . .

". . The fact is, disease happens. Sometimes it shortens life. It sucks, and it's unfair, but it doesn't have to ruin - or even diminish - a life. We don't spend every day shopping for caskets, but we also have a realistic outlook on where our family will be in 3, 5, 7 years. No one can tell the future, but we can prepare."

Next time another cancer patient or a well wisher or some innocent schmuck who is just trying to be helpful tells me my problem is that 

1. my problem is not planning for another 20 years
2. I'm giving off negative energy or c
3. hiking, eating bark, and swimming in cold salt water will fix what ails me

I'm sending them over to talk to Annie whose own reality she blogs about here   along with her knitting / design career, her children, her plans to help fund some of their expenses and life in general.

Boy, am I glad I met Annie.

 

Comments

[Bruce Curley]

Annie sounds alot like my (now gone) Mom. She has the same sense of humor and reality. Usually, my Mom would start with, "We all want it to be different, kid, but..."

I read a similar sentiment in USAA's magazine from a wife who lost her husband to cancer. She also tired of the cheeriness and cliche's...but had very down-to-earth and practical suggestions for what to say and what to do when faced with such facts of life and death.