It's been a very frustrating week. Numerous irritations, aggravations, and minor disasters, professional and personal, all seemed to happen more or less at once. Noe of which I am going to blog about directly, but...
Having arranged to take today off to deal with some of the personal disasters, I sat down to eat my lunch with one of my assistants. We started discussing one of the on-the-job pains, and he was telling me about how one of his peers was trying to get another one to swap new assignments with her. After explaining the (already known to me) reasons such a swap would not be approved (all or most of which she knows very well) he added "I have to say that I'm just as glad, since she's going out in a month or so for her... surgery..."
"Told you all about it, huh?"
"Yep."
"Me, too. Wanted to tell her I didn't want to hear about it, but it didn't seem like the right thing to do. Let her talk it out."
Yes, I know now far more than I ever wanted to about breast reconstructive surgery, how they do it, where they get the tissue...
"Just about everyone in her family has died of cancer, you know. That's why, when they found the first lump, she went for the radical instead of messing around."
"Didn't know that, but it makes sense." After a moment, he said "Y'know, there's this guy my wife works with, I want to kick his ass. He's got the same form of cancer she has" (I knew she had been ill, didn't realize it was cancer) and he keeps 'sharing' with her. 'They tried that treatment, it was only in remission for three years.' 'They tried that treatment, it didn't work.' They tried this other treatment, the side effects were horrible.' Every time she sees him he has to 'share'. He may think he's helping, but he's not."
"What an idiot, besides not being supportive, differant people respond to different treatments differently."
And I thought to myself, You know, Self, we have a thousand and one problems, but not a one is likely to kill us or someone we love.
Having arranged to take today off to deal with some of the personal disasters, I sat down to eat my lunch with one of my assistants. We started discussing one of the on-the-job pains, and he was telling me about how one of his peers was trying to get another one to swap new assignments with her. After explaining the (already known to me) reasons such a swap would not be approved (all or most of which she knows very well) he added "I have to say that I'm just as glad, since she's going out in a month or so for her... surgery..."
"Told you all about it, huh?"
"Yep."
"Me, too. Wanted to tell her I didn't want to hear about it, but it didn't seem like the right thing to do. Let her talk it out."
Yes, I know now far more than I ever wanted to about breast reconstructive surgery, how they do it, where they get the tissue...
"Just about everyone in her family has died of cancer, you know. That's why, when they found the first lump, she went for the radical instead of messing around."
"Didn't know that, but it makes sense." After a moment, he said "Y'know, there's this guy my wife works with, I want to kick his ass. He's got the same form of cancer she has" (I knew she had been ill, didn't realize it was cancer) and he keeps 'sharing' with her. 'They tried that treatment, it was only in remission for three years.' 'They tried that treatment, it didn't work.' They tried this other treatment, the side effects were horrible.' Every time she sees him he has to 'share'. He may think he's helping, but he's not."
"What an idiot, besides not being supportive, differant people respond to different treatments differently."
And I thought to myself, You know, Self, we have a thousand and one problems, but not a one is likely to kill us or someone we love.
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