Playing the ‘C’ Card
Going to chemo every few weeks is a good reality check. If I started to feel sorry for myself, one look around the waiting room quickly snuffed that out as I saw people who’ve been dealt a far tougher hand. I believe in avoiding self-pity. And, for most of my 10 years living with cancer, I believed in avoiding the pity of others. But shortly after my prognosis changed to ‘terminal’, I reconsidered that position. While I still did not want my friends and family to treat me differently, I realized that I should consider an exception for other people. In particular, people like hotel managers, flight attendants, and maitre d’s. My first time playing the ‘C’-card worked out great. My daughter Ella and I were in Wyoming and planning dinner at a mountain-top restaurant. Their on-line reservation system asked: “Is this a special evening?”. Well…OK…you asked. So I responded that I have stage 4 cancer and this was a special father-daughter trip…likely our last together to Jac