Chance Encounters

A friend of mine lost her teenage son to leukemia today.  I haven't spoken to this friend - ever.  I've never met her in person.  Yet I've known her for over 9 years and have been there during many of her major life events - bankruptcy, divorce, her son's diagnosis, bone marrow transplant and now his death.  If that seems strange to you, you probably aren't a blogger.

I met my friend online over nine years ago when I was a SAHM.  We both sold children's clothes on Ebay.  There was a big group of us - women in Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Washington and Ohio.  During Hurricane Katrina, we were online with one of our friends who was in Slidell with her two kids waiting for her husband before she evacuated and another who fled to Florida during her third trimester and returned to find nothing left of her home in Port Arthur.  There are many other stories, including my own, but you get the idea.  Blogging wasn't quite as popular then as it is now, so most of our conversations took place in a chat room format.  Eventually we created private chat rooms, especially for one particular friend, because she always seemed to draw the trolls.

It's really hard to explain to someone how you can be so involved in the lives of people you have never seen in person.  Sometimes I can hardly understand it myself.  Yet today I find myself in tears, worried about how she will make it financially.  I worry about her loss of faith during her son's illness.  I'm not sure how she can make it without leaning on God.  I'm also worried because her son was her life.  She is disabled and doesn't work outside of her home, so it's going to be a lonely place for her.

I do know that she has plenty of friends around the country, just like me, and we are all praying for her tonight.  Many of us will send her cards and a little money or a gift card to help out.  I just hope and pray she will reach out to at least one of her friends who, like me, have never met her in person.

cindy

The Quality of Life

The other day I heard a radio interview with Roger Ebert.  I remember Roger Ebert as the other half of the famous movie critics Siskel & Ebert.  Gene Siskel died about 7 years ago, but Roger was still working as a film critic with the Chicago Sun Times and on TV after Gene's death.  In 2006, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which subsequently became cancer of the salivary glands and then cancer of the jaw.  He had many treatments and surgeries to rebuild his face which was ravaged by cancer.  Today, the entire bottom of his face is gone and he can't speak because of a tracheotomy.  He uses a computer to speak for him. 

As I listened to the radio interview, I thought it was so sad that his life was basically over because so much had been taken from him.  I caught myself and realized - hey, the guy isn't dead yet.  Actually, he attended the Toronto Film Festival and still writes a regular movie column and well known blog.

While I was looking for pictures of iron lungs for my post about vaccines, I found this story about a 61 year old woman who has lived her entire life in an iron lung.

She lives alone in her house but has plenty of friends and family who visit.  She's very cheerful and satisfied even though she has spent most of her life in a tank.  Again, I found myself thinking her life was so tragic and wasted.

I've had some time to think about my reactions to both of these stories.  How dare I judge the quality of anyone's life?  I just assume that someone who suffers or is disabled can't be happy living through that.  My faith immediately tells me that is wrong, but I'm still struggling with it.

Tonight I read a reflection on Jesus' words to his disciples:  "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you."  How much better can life get than to have your Savior and friend look you in the eye and tell you He loves you as much as God loves Him?  Yet each of these disciples Jesus spoke to would go on to suffer fear, deprivation, doubt and horrendous painful deaths.  God's love doesn't guarantee a "happy" life, at least not by the standards I've been using.

Upon further reflection, I think I'm beginning to understand that suffering can be a gift.  It provides a person the opportunity to witness to God's goodness and mercy in the midst of pain.  Jesus tells us not to be afraid, but to rejoice in the times of trial.  It's not so easy to live life for God's glory when you're living it for your own comfort and enjoyment.  A person who is suffering can give a powerful testimony to God's love and mercy, and show the rest of us that the value of life isn't measured by what we consider health and wealth.  Just look to one of the best examples of this testimony:

A "quality life" is not a life of good health, wealth and worldly happiness.  It comes from the knowledge that life, no matter what the circumstances, is a precious gift from God that is meant to be lived for His glory.



cindy

Vaccines: We're in this Together

When he was five, my oldest brother spent a month in an iron lung in a hospital 45 minutes from my parents' home.  Have you ever seen an iron lung?

An iron lung is a negative pressure chamber that literally pushed air in and out of my brother's body.  Why?  Because the alternative was paralysis and maybe death from polio.  In the 1950s polio was the disease that made every mother terrified because it could strike without warning and spread like wildfire with no explanation or cure.  When the Salk vaccine was initially developed, my mom couldn't wait to get my then three year sister vaccinated.

When I was little, most kids suffered with measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox.  In fact, there was a significant outbreak of rubella around the time I was born that resulted in an estimated 20,000 infants born with congenital rubella syndrome, with an additional 2,100 neonatal deaths and 11,250 miscarriages. Of the 20,000 infants born with congenital rubella syndrome, 11,600 were deaf, 3,580 were blind and 1,800 were mentally retarded.  Can you imagine how scared my mom was, especially when my brother contracted rubella when I was 6 weeks old?

People like me who had mumps, rubella and chicken pox as kids without complications were the lucky ones.  Adult men who get mumps frequently get testicular infections and adult women who contract chicken pox during pregnancy (because they weren't immunized or didn't have the disease) can have a child with birth defects.

So what's my point?  Vaccines have resulted in significant improvements in the quality of life throughout the world.  The risk of many significant and widespread diseases has all but disappeared.  In fact, we no longer vaccinate for smallpox because the disease has been eradicated.  Unfortunately there are many diseases that are virtually gone in the U.S. but still exist in the world:  polio, pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria, chicken pox, mumps, measles, rubella and so many others.  These diseases are just an international flight away.

There is a movement to "exempt" children from routine childhood vaccines.  Here's the thing - if you choose not to vaccinate your child, I have no problem with you taking that risk with your child.  The problem is that there are others - people in my generation who don't have immunity because vaccines weren't available, infants who haven't been vaccinated, people with suppressed immune systems and more.  There have been specific examples of diseases returning when vaccinations were suspended - mumps on an Iowa college campus, pertussis in Sweden and the United Kingdom and various measles outbreaks.  Funny thing - of all of the arguments I've heard or read about the "risks" of vaccinations, I haven't seen one that disputes the fact that vaccines save hundreds of thousands of lives.  It's one thing to expose your children to diseases that may not be common today, but another to subject others to those diseases. Why do we want to bring back the fear our mothers and grandmothers experienced with their children?

Please - when you think about whether to vaccinate or not to vaccinate your child, please think about all of our children.

cindy