Farrah Fawcett
Did you watch the documentary on Farrah Fawcett's battle with cancer? I did. I think depicting her illness on a free national television network is the most appropriate thing she could do. Why? Because I believe that it is television that has made Americans ignorant about illness.
My husband has been battling cancer for four years. Watching our friends react to his illness has made me realize that many Americans get their information about illness from TV. For example, on TV, hospital rooms are larger than hotel suites. When I watch those shows, the sight of a nightstand can make me shriek with laughter. My husband's hospital rooms are so small, whenever a medical professional enters the room, I have to leave the room and push my little plastic chair out into the hall. Then I eavesdrop and take notes, like a spy.
When our wonderful long-distance friends sent flowers, there wasn't any space to display them in my husband's tiny rooms. I told everyone that there wasn't space for flowers, but they sent them anyway. I put the flowers in the waiting room. One particularly guilt-ridden friend said, "I'll keep his room filled with flowers every day!" And every day I showed my husband the flowers, and then took them to the waiting room, to die.
And speaking of waiting rooms, our long-distance friends often offered to come and sit with me in the waiting room.
That offer, as lovely as it was, always gave me a private laugh. During one two-month stay, I never once sat in a waiting room, and never once went to the cafeteria.
His bedclothes were so often soiled, that I got a little OJT nurse's aid training and kept him clean myself. And because the nurses and doctors used me as a liason, they asked me, all day long, "What did the doctor say? What did the last nurse do?" So I didn't dare leave the room for a leisurely lunch.
The funny thing was, the wonderful thing was, was this. When I realized how many of our friends had absolutely no knowledge of what a long battle with cancer is really like, my overwhelming feeling was one of gratitude.
I thought, How wonderful, how blessed we are that so many people haven't a clue as to what we're really going through. How good God is, to spare these people, these angels who send flowers, and offer to leave their jobs and travel far to sit in a waiting room with me.
However, I didn't try to be grateful. I didn't read a nice little Daily Meditation book about how to be grateful. It was just a gift. I thought about how blessed my friends are to think that hospital rooms look like the roomy suites on sit-coms. How blessed they are to be able to indulge in fairy tales about why people wake up from long comas. ("He woke up because he heard how much the hospital bill was going to be, ha, ha, ha!") Actually, he woke up because his kidneys had finally processed the deathly overdose of drugs he had been given.
I was grateful to God for sparing the other people I love, and believe me, I was not in the mood. I was mad at God, mad at cancer - even mad at my husband. Why had he worked in that high-pressure job for so many years? Why had he swilled that Pepsi all of his life? Why had he taken such pride in holding in his emotions? And of course, I was mad as hell at myself. Why hadn't I been a more assertive wife, and demanded that he change his lifestyle?
Instead, I thanked God for sparing all of our ignorant friends. I thought of the fun vacations they were taking. I thought of their vibrant intimate lives. I thought of their children, who didn't have to worry about their parents' health.
It made me realize that blessings come in many forms. My prayers for my husband might not have been answered to my satisfation, but what a gift I received in the form of gratitude - for the healthy lives of others.