Ok, I know in the grand scheme of all the blessings I've been given recently, I really don't have a right to complain. I seem to talk to a lot of women at work having cancer lately who are in a lot worse shape than I am. Even at the Crisis Line, I seem to be attracting all the cancer-related calls. Not long ago I had a call from a woman with a stage 3 cancer, and she expressed the same anger, hurt, fear that I remember feeling, and to some extent still feel. What made this call unique to me, was that she expressed anger at women who had lower stages of cancer than she did. She railed at the unfairness of those of us who were "lucky" enough to only have stage 1 or 2 cancer. She mourned the loss of her hair, and felt separate from the rest of the world. I felt and often still feel that same separateness. I know everyone around me empathizes, but unless you've experienced the trauma of a terminal illness (or in my case near-terminal), there's an unspoken understanding that you just can't know. I suppose the closest I could describe is for you to imagine you're the only human on a completely alien planet. You have a settled life, with alien friends and people around you. Now imagine, even with this life, there is a part of you that is, and always will be different. Then imagine the connectedness you feel when you happen to bump into another human on this alien world. Without using any words, there is an understanding that the aliens, no matter how thoughtful or understanding, can't quite grasp. That's what it feels like to talk with other women who have cancer. We don't need to use words to express ourselves. We just....know.
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