I was sitting in the Rush waiting room awaiting my CT scan. There was an old couple and then a group of three women- two daughters (50-60s) and their even older mother. They were laughing and joking that they should rent an apartment because they are now there do often for their mother. Not for any serious reasons it sounded like checkups due to her old age.
Then they said something that sent chills through my whole body. The one daughter says, "well we should be lucky to have our health- there's a woman in there with cancer."
It took every ounce of my energy to not say what I was screaming in my head. Since chemo has removed my filter I usually just say what I'm thinking even if people don't want to hear it. I wanted to stare at them and say - DON'T YOU DARE talk about her like she can't hear you! (the walls are paper thin and the whole CT area is very small) Now to be honest she probably didn't hear them, but when I went back to change into the lovely hospital dresses they give you I saw the woman they were talking about and wanted to cry.
She was a Grandmother, but if not for the age difference it was as if I was looking in a mirror. Bald, weak, so tired, no energy, but there clearly in the middle of chemo- and doing it probably for her two daughters that were sitting next to her. Now that woman probably didn't hear the women in the waiting room but I bet her daughters did.
This brave little lady had her sparkly jeans with butterflies on them, cute little whit moccasins, a matching denim hat with flowers, and her eye make up all done up despite having no eyebrows or lashes. How dare they talk about her like she wasn't even there - they should be grateful for their health and ability to laugh about being at a hospital.
I wanted to tell them to take a hike up to the 10th floor and see how many people were laughing up there, because they all look like that woman up there, and just 5 months ago I was one of them.
I'm sure they would have never guessed the 24 year old girl sitting across from them in the waiting room was a cancer survivor - but that is why people need to open their eyes and think before they open their mouth, you never know what the people around you have been through, and you certainly have no right to talk about others when you have no idea what battle they are fighting.
