Catchin Up

I Haven't been overly inspired to blog lately... While I'm having a nice relaxing time down here (I went on my first bike ride today in over a year :), I'm pretty exhausted from not being able to sleep a whole lot the last few nights. My back is pretty messed up, to the point where it's almost impossible to get any quality sleep right now. I take pain meds before bed but to have any effect or any chance at R.E.M., I have to take double the amount I would normally take. The result is something that resembles sleep but is more like a half conscious drug induced weird feeling (don't know how else to describe it). I can't take the naproxen because of my platelet count problem and a pending blood draw this Thursday. It's quite the conundrum and hopefully will be better by the time the weekend rolls around.

Now that I've vented, I just remembered a story I saw on the sports recap last night. There was this lady at the Green Bay airport who happens to be a cancer survivor in treatment. Apparently she is a major Packer fan and thus a big fan of their quarterback Aaron Rogers. I guess he was coming into the airport to travel to Chicago for the game and she was standing there with her bald head and a pink jersey on, pretty obvious she was battling cancer. As she asked Rogers for his autograph, he pretended not to see her and walked right by her. On it's face, the video looks pretty bad. Here's a guy who's supposed to be an icon or role model (whatever) and he disses an obvious cancer survivor and it's all caught on tape. I'm not going to bash him as he's only human and maybe he was just in a hurry... He's not obligated to sign anything obviously. Turns out he actually signed some stuff for her in the past (although the story did mention how other players did stop to sign autographs for her moments later).

I think the media really blew this thing up as our society seems to pay more attention to the bad (or perceived bad) things people do as opposed to the good. I guess drama sells...

When asked how she felt about what happened, her response was one of compassion and understanding for the quarterback. She actually felt bad that everyone was bashing the guy. She said she doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for her and didn't expect special treatment.

I have to say that I feel the same way regarding expecting special treatment and people feeling sorry for you. I think most cancer survivors will tell you that they don't expect special treatment and definitely don't want people to feel sorry for us.

However, I must say (and sure the woman would probably agree) that it is nice when people do recognize what you go through (when dealing with cancer) and do make the effort to try and understand what it's like. It's kinda what separates the people that really care about you from those that are just "passers by" if you know what I mean.

I guess I'm writing this post for a couple of reasons. The first of course is to vent about this awful back pain (because there's not a whole heck of a lot else to do about it). Secondly and most importantly is to again thank those of you who go out of your way to "understand" and support my struggle and the struggle every cancer survivor goes through at some point.

So, because I didn't know if I was going to have to go to New York when I booked this trip, I'm leaving tomorrow for the Michigan tundra. Nice thing is, I get to come back down next Monday (thank God for Spirit Airlines $9 fare club!). I'll be here until Feb 10th where I'll then fly to New York for my required 6 week clinic visit.

The saga continues, ha!

Chris