Tribute to Pamela
Today was my 49 year old cousins funeral. I met up with an old friend who was still every much apart of my cousins life and it was good to hear that they were as close before her death as we all were when we were in our teens.
We forget about other's daily problems when we are battling with survival ourselves. I found out that my cousin dreaded getting old because she suffered badly from arthiritis and her back gave her a lot of pain. Pain is a very wearing and real problem. I discovered she was using heavy duty painkillers to survive, she still worked but also suffered from bipolar and other various compliants, everything other than her heart. Pam was a hippy and even at 49 I doubt she changed. I was lucky to see her when I was ill, I honestly thought how well she looked and didn't realise what she was going through, health wise. Yet I say the same about myself, quite often people use to come up and say "Don't you look well", it obviously must run in the family as usually that was when I felt my worst!
One of my brothers commented on the remark about her wanting to give up before she was too old because she couldn't stand waking up each day with pain. We who have cancer and suffer from a lot of pain feel that that's our lot and we have to get on with it, and it is wearing but I have to say I haven't wanted to die to be away from it .. well not yet anyway, although I do look forward to a day when I jump out of bed pain free!
On a brighter note I have been asked to do an interview on mesothelioma for our local paper. It all started with an article in the paper regarding a Mr Clark who died of mesothelioma. The reporter asked for anyone to respond regarding the disease. One of my friends emailed and told her to read my website and from there the interview date has been set. I can only hope something good comes out of bringing mesothelioma to the forefront again. When you think about it, mesothelioma only hits the papers usually once a year because of Action Day, so any opportunity to keep it regularly in the press can only be good.
I wish there was a miracle out there for every type of cancer, can you imagine how great it would be if we could snap our fingers and be cured? I heard such a sad story the other day and I thought I'll share it.
I lost dad's burial plot certificate so thought to ring the funeral directors. The lady was extremely helpful and we got chatting. Somehow before the end of the call I learnt her mother died young of cervical cancer, her father of bowel cancer, her brother is fighting bowel cancer which has now attacked his liver. He is the only family she has outside of her own daughter. Her brother works abroad and the sister contacted his oncologist because the brother was feeling ill, he organised a scan out in Asia and sent it home. The oncologist as told her to inform him to get chemo out there as he would be better off than coming to England for it! Once over this was the best country in the world for medicine and treatments. So it's not only us meso sufferers who are swept under the carpet (so to speak) but others as well. I was shocked when she told me this, like most of you reading this, we only ever want to be treated at home. Yes I know I have travelled to the States and some of you have or are travelling to Germany but really all we want is to have these options here.
Cancer care or indeed any type of care should be the best you can possibly receive, every tax payer and employer pays a small fortune into the NHS and yet it can't support us. I still say if they legalised drugs then all that missed tax would keep the NHS going for years to come and to be blunt in profit. How much does it cost to treat a heroin user or a crack head, yet most don't work and only cause others pain by stealing and most of the time get better treatment than those who have worked and contributed. It makes my blood boil.
My rant for the day, hopefully I will feel differently by the time I do the interview otherwise I might get my windows put out!
So my thought for today is to think of others who suffer pain every day too and feel glad to still be breathing and able to get up on a morning, even if all I do all day is complain!
Jan
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