It has been an odd month. I won’t go into details about the 3 people I know whom I have found out have cancer/probable cancer. But it’s freaking me out. They are all young — one is just eleven — but it’s making me feel old and scared and very, very mortal. The thing that has been getting to me the most, though, is an old friend who was in a snowboarding accident Christmas Eve and broke his back, among other things. They have been working to keep him alive since then (which has gone blessedly well) so we don’t know many details on the status of the back, but so far he has not been able to feel anything from the waist down. For some reason this sort of thing gets to me more than even death itself. The thought of losing functionality absolutely terrifies me and it terrifies me vicariously in this situation. In fact, I don’t want to talk about that much anymore.
This family is full of gems. The Mom is brilliant; she is my best friend from college and she is incredible with all she is able to do. The Dad, who had the accident, is also brilliant and an incredibly hard worker who only recently was able to get past the post-doc world and become faculty at the U of U. Their oldest child (who is far too old š ) is a great help AND very smart, and the youngest child is a spitfire full of laughs. Their middle child unfortunately has some fairly severe handicaps, but I know this has brought blessings to the family through the struggles, and I think it has brought blessings to many others as well because the Mom fights so hard to make sure the legislature passes laws to help children like him. I mean, tell me, who has the strength and energy to raise 2 normal children AND a severely handicapped child AND lobby the state along with the other jobs she does on the side? She’s incredible!
At any rate, I will be going down there in mid-January to help, but if anyone would like to contribute to gifts for this amazing family, please contact me at spamcatcher AT cableone DOT net in the next week or two and I will be happy to put any contributions into the kitty. The Dad is going to be in rehab for probably about a year, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi, this is you-know-who in Seattle. We also had a severe accident over the holidays. Our RV was run off the road by a truck on a mountain pass. The entire unit rolled, and was totaled. We had to be pulled out (upside down) through the shattered windows. Amazingly, neither of us were killed or even seriously injured beyond some bruises. I normally did not wear a seat belt, but was wearing one that day. I will wear seat belts now.