Having a chronic or life-threatening illness is difficult enough without feeling like you’re responsible for the world. It’s amazing how many people will get annoyed because health gets in the way of “having fun”. It doesn’t seem fair and yet I hear about it all the time.
I was talking to a friend of mine that I’ve known since college. Over the past few years she’s been having some health issues and the doctors are still looking for a definitive diagnosis, but they have some preliminary findings. What they don’t have to diagnosis is the experience of the illness my friend is having on a regular basis.
She shared with me that she’s hesitant to make plans with people because her health, at this time, is a bit tenuous. It’s the next thing she said that caught me off guard. She said that she’d rather not make plans than worry about people rolling their eyes at her because she has to cancel plans. Is that ridiculous? Can people be that self-absorbed that the intrusion of illness on your friend’s quality of life is looked at as an inconvenience?
If people have been friends for a while then it shouldn’t be a surprise that limitations may arise and compassion should be the only response. We’re intelligent beings, couldn’t you alter the plans to something that isn’t so energy draining?
I hope the world would be a bit more forgiving, but maybe I’m deceiving myself. Could it be that we live in such an ego-centric world that another person’s suffering shouldn’t interfere with our fun? Is that practical? Is it even possible? Do you have any stories like this in your life? If so please share so that people won’t feel so isolated in this issue.
Pilgrim Pathway/Surviving Strong 