To Welshie …
Of COURSE laughter is denial. It’s spitting into the wind because you’re sure that you can duck faster than Fate blows. It’s tickling the belly of a cat who hates its belly tickled because *this* time she might realize she likes being tickled. Laughter is walking right up to the edge of the cliff because that’s where the best view is. If we failed to deny the negative we’d never get to have any fun with the positive.
If somebody can come up with a good reason that the occasional denial is a bad thing, I’d love to hear it. Actually, I won’t be listening. I’ll be denying your right to deny my denial. Probably by laughing.
Twenty years? My goodness, it doesn’t seem that long. I’m very glad to be able to wish you Happy Survivor Day.
Your last sentence reminded me of a favourite Austen quote:
"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?"
Not having had a primary care physician all through my cancer treatment, and relying on specialists for other things (e.g., orthopedist for persistent back pain in case it was a serious issue requiring specialized treatment), I finally went to see a highly-recommended PCP earlier this month for my routine well woman exam to establish a relationship with someone. Looking at the records I brought, she said her mind was about to explode at all the specialists I’d seen over the past year, and that I didn’t need to see them for all I’d seen them for…and then she proceeded to tell me that she wanted to see me every 3 months "just to touch base" in addition to any time I have a health issue come up. This on top of the specialists I HAVE to keep seeing regularly to monitor my cancer status (oncologist, breast surgeon, etc.) Ummm…considering that the PCP’s prices are almost as high as the specialists’, I might as well just see them instead!
In any case…Happy Survivor’s Day, and congratulations on 20 years!
I am so glad that you survived that awful day in vet school two decades ago. I would never have been able to know you otherwise. (I think your first commentor thinks your liver transplant happened 20 years ago, but I know it was the heart thing before that, which probably caused the liver thing, as I recall.) I love and miss you, and I hope your life is going as smoothly as it can. I fervently wish that those gawd-awful CROOKS in DC don’t take your health care away, or mine.
Happy Survivors Day!!!
It’s been a couple of months of specialists for R, too. Radiology, oncology/hematology, palliative care, endogrinology, dermatology, the only ology he seems to be missing in the gynec variety though the fact that he’s eating like a pregnant woman makes me wonder if they’re missing the mark on that one.
The ability to laugh is so vital to the human condition. Just don’t do it in front of the palliative care doc (who looks alarmingly like Jack Kevorkian) because that is seen as denial and frowned upon. Good news is that his oncologists had a spaz when she found out his pcp put him in palliative care to begin with and is having him transferred to pain management in Indy.
Thanks, 404Error, who is of course quite correct. The reason it doesn’t seem like twenty years is that it isn’t quite that long. I read the reference to seeing your transplant team and didn’t do the sum in my head. I didn’t actually know you in 1997.
Looking forward to the thirty-year anniversary.
I was just thinking it couldn’t be 20 years, because I only discovered DD (and met you) about 17 years ago
Happy Survivor Day! (And I reckon denial, like many things, is perfectly healthy if taken in moderation).
Cheers from another seventeen-year friend! Stay healthy, and I wouldn’t rub that cat’s belly if I were you….
I rather like the view from the edge!
Definitely a Happy Survivorday! It is definitely a day to be celebrated.
Alli