Lindsay Norris' Letter to Patients - "Sorry, I didn't get it"
Empathy statement from an oncology nurse turned patient. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIXLcxnFqns&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2ju2mYXgmMlEN8YruUaiBGEJ7wPEofV1SpLu4NfWKsZPFCef6Yl7wr4Gs
Forum Discussion
@"Patti J" Of course one doesn't truly understand what something is like until it happens to you. It is the nature of existence as a human being. The 'walk a mile in my shoes' type sayings speak to this, essentially a request for empathy.
As @Afraser said, many turn away from the scariest things. Because it is too scary, or too much to add to a full plate, or sometimes because they lack empathy. Some people are more empathetic than others. I would suggest that the nurse in the clip has oodles of empathy. She was drawn to a caring profession, and then through her own diagnosis, realised how much she didn't know.
No, I do not know what it is to live with Stage 4 breast cancer. That doesn't mean I don't have empathy and sympathy and care for you and all in your position. I have had the unfortunate experience of watching two people close to me, my sister and sister-in-law, die from breast cancer and a brain tumour respectively. Up close, in their bedrooms, their hospital rooms, caring for them, cooking for them, and holding them when they cried. Their deaths were not like deaths in the movies.
So I feel like I have a better understanding of what it's like to be Stage 4 than some. Neither of these women were old, both were leaving behind young children. Hearing your sister repeatedly sob her heart out about never seeing her children grow up is simply the most devastatingly sad thing I've ever experienced. They were eight and ten years old when she died. I'm now raising them.
I have never had a child die. But my parents have, and I live with a man who has (my father-in-law). And his wife died at 39, dropped dead on the kitchen floor from a brain aneurysm. Found by her eleven year old daughter (the one who died in 2015). I don't know what these horrendous experiences are like but I know what the effects look like, and have deep care and empathy for the people involved and the effects it has.
Life is full of dreadful dreadful tragedy. A fully rounded human being turns towards the events, the people left behind, to comfort, to understand the distress so they can help.
However sometimes it's too much. Sometimes people have horrors in their own lives and cannot take on any more. Sometimes people don't know what to do or say, are embarrassed by their inabilities, and don't respond in a way we'd like. And there are the people who don't want to know at all because it's just too scary. So many people here can tell the tale of lost friendships upon diagnosis.
On the rare occasion when my husband and I are invited to a big party or event, the type where we'd meet new people, we often discuss how much information about our life we'll explain. We don't always have the emotional resilience to deal with the responses. Either the kind ones, the over the top empathisers who weep, or the ones who pretty much immediately turn away.
I think this forum is a special place because we do understand the anger and ths fear, more viscerally than most. So no, I don't know what it's like to have a terminal diagnosis. And you will never know what it's like to raise two seriously traumatised, extremely difficult young children who were abandoned by their father and whose mentally ill mother died from breast cancer. That doesn't mean I don't feel for you, I do. I hope I don't ever know what it's like to be Stage 4, but my chances, everyone's chances here, are higher than those who aren't here. So everyone here feels for you more than those who aren't.
I get your anger Patti. I wish I could make it all go away for you, for all the Stage 4 folk. But I can't. The best I can do is empathise with the bitter horror of a life cut short, and wish for your meds to keep you comfortably alive as long as possible. K xox
As @Afraser said, many turn away from the scariest things. Because it is too scary, or too much to add to a full plate, or sometimes because they lack empathy. Some people are more empathetic than others. I would suggest that the nurse in the clip has oodles of empathy. She was drawn to a caring profession, and then through her own diagnosis, realised how much she didn't know.
No, I do not know what it is to live with Stage 4 breast cancer. That doesn't mean I don't have empathy and sympathy and care for you and all in your position. I have had the unfortunate experience of watching two people close to me, my sister and sister-in-law, die from breast cancer and a brain tumour respectively. Up close, in their bedrooms, their hospital rooms, caring for them, cooking for them, and holding them when they cried. Their deaths were not like deaths in the movies.
So I feel like I have a better understanding of what it's like to be Stage 4 than some. Neither of these women were old, both were leaving behind young children. Hearing your sister repeatedly sob her heart out about never seeing her children grow up is simply the most devastatingly sad thing I've ever experienced. They were eight and ten years old when she died. I'm now raising them.
I have never had a child die. But my parents have, and I live with a man who has (my father-in-law). And his wife died at 39, dropped dead on the kitchen floor from a brain aneurysm. Found by her eleven year old daughter (the one who died in 2015). I don't know what these horrendous experiences are like but I know what the effects look like, and have deep care and empathy for the people involved and the effects it has.
Life is full of dreadful dreadful tragedy. A fully rounded human being turns towards the events, the people left behind, to comfort, to understand the distress so they can help.
However sometimes it's too much. Sometimes people have horrors in their own lives and cannot take on any more. Sometimes people don't know what to do or say, are embarrassed by their inabilities, and don't respond in a way we'd like. And there are the people who don't want to know at all because it's just too scary. So many people here can tell the tale of lost friendships upon diagnosis.
On the rare occasion when my husband and I are invited to a big party or event, the type where we'd meet new people, we often discuss how much information about our life we'll explain. We don't always have the emotional resilience to deal with the responses. Either the kind ones, the over the top empathisers who weep, or the ones who pretty much immediately turn away.
I think this forum is a special place because we do understand the anger and ths fear, more viscerally than most. So no, I don't know what it's like to have a terminal diagnosis. And you will never know what it's like to raise two seriously traumatised, extremely difficult young children who were abandoned by their father and whose mentally ill mother died from breast cancer. That doesn't mean I don't feel for you, I do. I hope I don't ever know what it's like to be Stage 4, but my chances, everyone's chances here, are higher than those who aren't here. So everyone here feels for you more than those who aren't.
I get your anger Patti. I wish I could make it all go away for you, for all the Stage 4 folk. But I can't. The best I can do is empathise with the bitter horror of a life cut short, and wish for your meds to keep you comfortably alive as long as possible. K xox