One of the best things about cancer (another oxymoron, I know) is that you start hanging around with a much better class of people; people who are smarter than you, more sensitive than you and who can teach you things you never knew you didn't want to know about your body and how it can betray you when it wants to (what silver-tongued devil I am, eh?).
These people are known as professionals, volunteers and survivors, of which I am now a two-time survivor and ongoing volunteer, so I should be twice as valuable by this time, right? The only down-side to becoming one of these wizened individuals is that one must go through the pain of a personal relationship, either your own, a family member's, multiple patient's or friend's, with cancer and learn as you go. I'm still way lost, so follow at a safe distance because as far as I know Garmin has not made a navigation system for cancer . . . and if they have that sucker it better be under the tree or the fat man's gonna be choking down Aunt Bertha's Holiday Date fruit cake next year instead of tollhouse cookies.
"These people," are some of the most valuable you will ever meet, and they/we would return that sentiment wholeheartedly. We are more than willing to have our knowledge and experience taken advantage of, and in fact welcome your pain, because in a strange way your pain is our medicine; empathy is what is transfused between donors. It is virtually painless to deliver and helps both the giver and receiver. They can inject it with a smile, a hug, or a warm voice on the other end of the phone line.
Accept it. Relish it. Learn from it. Pass it on.
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