Bitter Pills

This is not going to be a feel good post. I just want to warn any readers ahead of time.  

Recently, there have been several stories in the news that have put me in a not-so-good state of mind. I HATE feeling this way...I am not a hateful person...I am not a jealous person...I am not ugly.

Alec Trebec, a somebody with lots of money, age 79, has been treated for pancreatic cancer, and is doing very well, might even be cured. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a somebody with money, age 86, has been treated for pancreatic cancer for the second time, and is doing very well, might even be cured. My husband, a regular person with not much money, age 64, died from pancreatic cancer that had metastasized, and no one really went out of their way to try and cure him. To say I'm a bit pissed, is putting it mildly.

I won't say that my husband's care was sub par. He had other issues, along with the cancer, but I can't help but feel as if he would have had more aggressive treatment if we were 'somebodies' with a lot of money. Instead, he lingered for two weeks in the hospital with the doctors, basically, doing everything BUT work on the cancer. If I let myself, I could be very, very bitter.

It also hurts to see people so very much older than my husband, getting the aggressive care he didn't get. AND it isn't as if at least one of the two people I mentioned is in peak health...Ginsburg has pretty much been at death's door a few times and she's gotten top health care to pull her through. It hurts.

I probably could have gotten through the 'cured' stories if I wouldn't have seen the story* about kidney transplant studies that just came out. The study says that ten people, who have been offered a kidney for transplant and didn't get it, die every day here in the US. The bottom line from the study is that transplant centers are too choosy about accepting kidneys and will refuse donated ones because they aren't 'perfect.' And so, people die before getting transplants. I can't help but wonder if, and how many, kidneys my husband COULD HAVE had, but they were turned down by the transplant center. If he had been transplanted, he quite possibly could have lived a very full, non-dialysis life for three years...instead of what he went through. And could his cancer have been caught early enough to be treated? There are so many 'what ifs'...

These are dark thoughts...something I have to get through. I will wallow for a bit and then let it go. Sometimes you HAVE to wallow and be bitter, just so you can work through the emotions...it can be a big part of healing. I will work through this and come out the other end and be in a better place. My faith won't let me think I know better than God as to how things were to work out...I know He has/had a reason for things to go the way they did. I just wish He would let me in on the secret...

*Here is a link to the story about the transplants: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/917499#vp_1