Consequences of Knowing so Much

Last week my parents told me a sad story.  While that sounds rather cliché, I don’t want to call it anything else because the ending is unknown and we hope it will be celebratory.  Yet, it doesn’t start off well at all.

A female coworker at my dad’s place of employment has noticed a large bump on the side of her neck.  Apparently, she showed it to her chiropractor and he recommended doing some adjustments, stretches, and waiting to see how it was after two weeks.  He recommended checking with a doctor if nothing had changed by then.  She had told this to a coworker about 3 and a half weeks ago, when the coworker recommended that she show the bump to my dad, since dad has had years of experience with my brother’s abnormal cancers and health issues.  She did and my dad did something totally out of character.  He said, “Go to your doctor, and Do Not wait to get it looked at.”  Dad is the most reserved of the family.  He doesn’t give advice or intervene in others' lives lightly.  If you knew my dad like I do, you would understand that what he saw caused him, forced him, to step out of character and give grave advice.

Fast forward to 2 Fridays ago.  The woman had her first oncology appointment.  She has advanced stage breast cancer.  As of Friday, it was too early to even give an official stage diagnosis, but my family and I we know it’s probably Stage 4 if it’s showing up in her neck and spots are on her lungs.  She is a single mom and the only bread winner.  Keep her in your prayers.

My dad ended this part of the conversation with saying, “Ya know, if I hadn’t said anything, she wouldn’t have gone to her doctor until much later.”  He didn’t say that with smug pride.  Beneath the words there was a mixture of a heavy burden and a sense of having helped in some small way.  That mixture was a consequence of knowing much, and especially of having been through much.

This has made me think about the consequences of the information and experience my family and I have in a different way.  When my father told me this lady had a bump on her neck and exactly where it was, I already knew.  Sure, I knew that it could also be her lymph nodes freaking out from an infection or something else, but I could only see it as a potential cancer because Jonathan had the same thing.  The key to living with this this kind of experience the rest of your life is to find a balance between objectivity and paranoia.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Paranoia does happen.  Under circumstances of death and stress over a long period of time, trifling health scares tend to look like death sentences.  Then, when you realize you’re only dying at the same rate as everybody else and not of something in particular, well, then you shake yourself up and eventually grow tougher nerves.  Yet, then an experience like the above occurs, and you know you aren’t paranoid.  Do you speak? Do you potentially help someone?  Or do you potentially expose yourself as paranoid?  What about speaking, ending up being correct, but nothing helps in the long run?

These are tough questions.  They are questions anybody that has been through a prolonged traumatic experience will face for the rest of life.  I’m not sure there is a correct answer.  I think it depends on the situation and the people involved.  This means we always have to be discerning and use common sense.  We humans don’t have the greatest track record with common sense and discernment, but we should always try.

I think one of the most difficult things about being in my shoes and the shoes of so many others who have been steeped in this kind of experience is watching new people be initiated into it.  The worst is when you hear from someone about a very bad case.  They give you the nitty gritty details that you understand.  They are painting a picture of impending death with these details, but they don’t even know it yet because they are too “green” to understand still.  It’s horrible knowing what is coming down the road for the patients and the families.  It’s horrible watching it happen.  And it’s worse being right.

I think the best part of ‘knowing so much’ is that I can speak a language others can’t.  I belong to a community that really values the importance of life.  I can say “I understand” and really truly mean it, and not be loathed by the other person.  We that belong to this community make a difference in each others' lives because we are the only ones that truly understand such a tough road.