I’ve come to the realization that I am not a medical person. Previously, I had felt faint when my neighbor started telling me about difficulties in her pregnancy. Then other times I would get queasy from seeing people after they had surgery, or anything that made them look different.
Friday night, I was sitting outside and my neighbor comes out, I ask her how she’s feeling, since previously she’s been coughing a lot. Then she tells me a real shocker. At first I thought she said something about a lachter. Then she said she had a lump so she went to the doctor. The doctor said it was a benign tumor. When I heard this I felt faint, it was a good thing I was sitting already, but I wanted to rush into my house. I got really scared when I heard this, and to me it sounded like a big thing, I almost started crying.
But I couldn’t run into my house since my neighbor was talking to me, so I had to listen. So she was telling me how she went to her husband’s aunt that’s a doctor in a hospital in NJ. She told me how they treated her good because of that, that she was treated like gold, and that it was like a family visit. But to me it sounded like she was trying to make the situation sound better than it really is. As though she was covering up how scared she was, by telling me how nicely they treated her, and this made me more sad.
The whole Friday night I was tossing and turning in bed, and couldn’t fall asleep, cause I was really worried about her. I realized I’m not an adult in this way, and think like a child with an overactive imagination. As soon as I hear certain words I get really scared, even though she may be ok, to me it sounds worse.
One thing that really troubles me, is that she said she had the lump since February and just didn’t bother going to the doctor till now. Since she was pregnant and thought it might just be a fat deposit, cause that’s supposed to be a common thing. But I don’t get this, I’m not sure what goes on behind closed bedroom doors, but I would imagine the husband sees the wife? would he not realize that something is wrong with her? why didn’t he make her go to the doctor earlier? or did he not even notice it? She said she can’t get the tumor removed for a while, since she’s in her 6th month, and she’s going to wait till after she has the baby, and after she nurses it. She said the lump will grow bigger over time, but that it will be okay. I’m really scared about this.
As I was thinking about this all, I came to the realization of what I’m scared of. It’s not that I’m scared of special people, but rather I’m scared of the disease or illness that they have. Even after my own mother and sister had surgery, I got nauseous from looking at them, and it took a while for me to adjust to the yellow coloring of the antiseptic, or the swollen look of the face. So when I see sick people, I get scared because it pains me and I feel bad for what their going through. It’s because I don’t know anything about what their going through, and I don’t know how to deal with it.
10 comments:
You don't usually sound as a girl who would faint that easily, but you have to be stronger because you will carry kids yourself.
Anyway even if they found tumor, it's in the beginning so it is still possible to avoid it. Sad to hear anyway. Pray well for your friend. Refua Shleima!
My whole family's in medicine and I still get petrified from these things. Blood and vomit don't bother me, but stuff like cancer and terminal illnesses worry me to no end. Every time the phone rang on shabbos for the past few years I jumped to the caller ID to make sure it wasn't a hospital calling about a relative. Problem is that I'm so scared for the sick people but it's hard to relay my compassion without scaring them!
For some reason giving birth doesn't scare me as much though, just the whole ob-gyn thing is going to take some getting used to.
Like they're saying; it's natural to fear and feel sympathy towards disease and pain. Though benign tumors aren't so bad. In fact almost all of us living in these big cities have tiny benign tumors all over our innards just waiting to manifest in a stronger way. Which is why it's so important to distance oneself from carcinagens; little things can trigger the potential tumors within us (which should not befall us. May G-d protect us).
One of earlist posts was about this:
http://sshriki.blogspot.com/2006/11/blog-post_508.html
Believe it or not, that is totally normal. When someone is ill, we have the sense of needing to make them feel better. Since we can't do it "medicallY" then we try with comfort. But what words? When i was in the hospital, it would make me laugh what people would say. My favorite was "you look good". Really? I had a tube come out of nose, i was pale, i had IV and looked like a Borg. I looked GOOD? What did i look like NORMALLY? I knew that they wanted to make me feel better but just didn't know what to say.
Rather than trying to come up with something - ask "is there anything i can do?" Mine i usually "i honestly wish i had some wisdom to say, what i do have is an ear to listen if you would like to talk or we can talk about anything YOU want".
I have found some variation of that useful because they don't want or need "advice" or "comfort" what they really want is a friend to stick around (most hide away) and to chit chat about Soap operas or shopping or anything normal.
Sure it might be hard, think how hard it is from their end. One might only be spending a couple of hours chit chatting...they have to manage an illness 24/7.
It helps to know what they need, because it takes a lot of pressure off "comforting" and "counselling".
Be well!
I forgot my JS-Kit login. Then I got distracted by learning how I could set up my own open ID on my blog with my own authentication. And wondering why in the world I would want to spend time doing this.
You are sensitive to others. And like many of us, afraid of cancer and other diseases. My own way of dealing with cancer fear is being very careful about what I eat. The link to Cancer and Nutrition goes way back to the 1970s, but big industry doesn't make much money off teaching us this, so we don't get it in the mainstream. In the end, though, hakol biyidai Shamaim, hutz me Yirat Shamayim.
Take care.
About shots, offer still stands to come with me when I go with NY for shots. You can practice on him. ;-)
About the woman's talking about how she was treated. If she was ever in a NY hospital, I can totally get why she would spend half an hour talking about how well she was treated. Maimo is one of the nastiest hospitals out there. ER, pediatrics and maternity are bad, bad, bad.
ahh yes I will, or at least bring him along for support
lol, thanx for the offer, but no thanx
yea, could be she was comparing, but I think she was just showing how because it was her huband's aunt they treated her better.
an oppurtunity came up where she asked me to babysit her kid, and it really helped to keep in mind what you said about offering to help. I felt good afterwards, and I told her she doesn't have to pay me for it.
pregnancy is very very bad situation for any women pass through this situation most of the died women are caused by the pregnancy
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