Just Damn
I have a very good friend, excuse me, very good friends - a nuclear family. Husband, wife, young daughter. Both parents have a myriad of health issues but I've always thought how nice that they have a daughter who can help them with the problems life always seems to throw at the infirm.
Recently my friend told me that his daughter was having her own problems - pain, discomfort, sleeping problems. I was sorry to hear it but thought it might be some expression of a troubled genetic heritage and that it might be something that she could work her way through. Then the other shoe drops. I get a call yesterday that the child was examine and has been found to have a tumor on her spine at the base of her skull. It's not known yet whether it's operable and she's going in for a CAT scan today (or very shortly) to see how it lies.
I am praying that it is not malignant and has not metastasized. She's a good kid. I love that family dearly. I sit here with my bad joints and think of her and wish I could take her pain on myself. But those trades are only made in "Twilight Zone" episodes. I'll trust in God to do his will. As much as it pains me to think of her.