Kick in the stomach

It is 9:14 am and I am sitting in the waiting room at Sloan Kettering in Westchester and I have been here already for an hour.   I've already had my blood work done and I now have a quiet place to read.  I am waiting for a chemo shot in the stomach and a shot in my arm to strengthen my bones.  My white blood cell count is low again, due to the chemo of 2 weeks ago.  I feel sad to be alone but I know that if that is my worst problem today I will be thrilled. 

A young mother walks in with her six year old son and calls him by the same pet name that I used to use for my youngest daughter.   I look up.  She is sweet and pretty and he is adorable and clearly very smart.  He is pale.  She takes a bottle of pills out of her purse and gives him what looks to be a handful.  He takes them without a word or a question or a glass of water.  He is the patient.  

Multiple myeloma is a disease of older people for the most part.  I saw a chart of this yesterday and felt strange that I was so "young" to have this disease.  

But I am not 6.  I thank heaven every day that I am sick and it is not one of my children who is sick.  When we feel sad or bad about our situation, remember this; we have had our lives, our loves, our children, if we were able to have children.   When I read Suleika Jaouad's Between Two Kingdoms, I remember reading about her ovary harvest before her chemo began and I said out loud to myself, "Omg, this poor woman might never have children."  I felt sick for her.  

The little boy just walked by me on the way in for his treatment.  He is wearing a hat from the elementary school that my children attended. He had tubes up his nose.  His mother trails behind him with a backpack filled with oxygen.  That poor little boy is on oxygen.   I realize that I have no idea what type of cancer he has. This is a cancer hospital.

Now I am going in for my shot.  I'm in a brightly lit room and I feel like I am going to cry.  I am lucky.  I can see, I can walk, my children are not the patients, here.  

Whenever you think that life is tough, remember that someone around you, probably many around you, surely have it much worse. 

Love deeply and sincerely. 

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