i felt inspired to start blogging again after recently stumbling upon one of my co-worker's blogs. well, ex-coworker now, she is on medical disability leave and may not come back.
about 2 weeks ago we got an email that said my co-worker was on indefinite leave and that there would be some restructuring because of this. one thing that happened was that my boss got a promotion, essentially taking this woman's position. upon hearing this i mainly just felt happy for my boss. the whole thing was really sudden, and i never knew this co-worker to be sick--in fact she always seemed very lively, so i just assumed that something strange was at play and it was her personal business. i didn't really work with her that much.
however i found out on friday that this co-worker is actually really sick, and according to her blog, has been for the past 4+ years. what started as breast cancer spread throughout her body, and now she has like 4 or 5 tumors in her brain. apparently she has been living for 17 months with the brain tumors, whereas most people only live 3 to 6 months.
i don't think i need to express how sad i felt reading this blog. i sort of read through it backwards- starting from now and going to the beginning. there would be like one post where the test results were good and the tumors were shrinking and then the next post would report that the tumors had doubled in size. she started experiencing seizures and has lost muscle control in a lot of her body, so she can't walk. there was one day at work she came in with a black eye which gave me kind of a weird impression of her...turns out she tripped over a cord at a gas pump and hit her head on the curb. in general, her appearance has changed a lot (in a bad way) because of side effects from the medicine. she doesn't really look like the same person anymore. did i mention she has 5 kids and a husband, all college aged and younger? yeah. at the first the blog was very hopeful, but by the end it seemed like a quiet, and somehow positive, resignation. she is happy just for little things each day (although i'm sure they haven't been with out their downs as well).
on the positive side, i had a good impression from her at work and thought she was friendly and energetic. pta obviously treated her very well during this ordeal, and she said working helped to keep her going. for someone who has been wondering for 4+ years when their life was going to prematurely be taken from them, her outlook was amazing to me.
so why did that inspire me to start blogging again...i don't know. i guess everyone has a story to tell, a perspective to share. i wouldn't want to sit around reading cancer blogs all day, but i think it was good for me to have read hers, it made me feel a little bit more well-rounded.
i guess my basic thought is, if you have something to say, you should say it. blogging in china was easy, everyday life was so interesting and i was dying to write about it. here is a little more challenging 但是我要努力 (but i will strive) because i really don't think i'm that jaded. i'd like to write, so we'll see.
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