Changes

Hi Peta,

I am not much like that now with my breast cancer as my family is hugely supportive.  However, ten years ago I was very close to death with heart failure, and was was on sick leave from my secondary teaching job for nine months.  I recovered enough to return to work in Term 4.  Everyone was lovely to me and very supportive, but on my return and until I retired at the end of 2012, I could never bear to listen to the complaints of staff politics.  I had to suppress my reaction, of course, but when someone was chucking a wobbly because he didn't get the classes that he wanted for the next year, or someone was going on and on trying to enlist my support to protest to the administration about the fact that some initiative had been rejected (for a good reason), I wanted to yell at them to shut up, grow up, and try encountering a life-threatening illness if they wanted a real problem.  Of course I was supportive where real issues were involved, but for me it was as though I had been given glasses which suddenly showed what were real problems in life, and what was absolutely petty.  It was very hard to cope with people who did not have the same clarity of vision!