This comes from deep within and it is something that I have written about in the past. I am referring to minimizing or reducing the significance of my or any Cancer Patient’s situation. As I have begun to feel better in the past few weeks it has come to my attention that I am perhaps “putting on too much of a show” for you all and not giving you to full weight of my situation. I’ll explain in a minute, but first I do want to say that these comments were not spurred by anything anyone has written to me in the past while, your comments and thoughts have been great and I enjoy receiving them. This thought process has come from the fact that I have been thinking about the picture I create for you all and I did a little review and think that I may be somewhat misleading. Which is a by-product of the fact that I only write when I feel well and the fact that I explained I would never discuss the true lows as I felt they would best be covered during post-victory party correspondence. Also contributing to this potential “misconception” is the fact that I always attempt to be positive and view my situation, no matter what is involved, from a positive vantage point. I am not willing to compromise this approach to ensure you understand the significance of my situation, I will trust you all to use your good judgement.
My thoughts. My gentle lesson or the message I wanted to pass along is that when dealing with a serious situation, such as mine, you should use a degree of caution when addressing it’s significance. This relates to any number of serious situations. Again I am only expressing a personal opinion but that is what I do here. I feel that when addressing someone’s serious situation one should always be careful about reducing it’s significance. No matter how right it may feel to reduce the significance of the challenges, past, present or future, it is not. What may seem like an encouraging comment may be interpreted as careless and a failure to understand a persons situation. And that can be offending as a persons accomplishments have been reduced. This isn’t rocket science, I just think that one should be sincere and caring towards a person’s situation. That said I realize it is impossible for a non-Cancer Patient to fully understand the situation and circumstances facing a Cancer Patient, thus it makes sense that you not pretend to understand. An attempt to understand with a question or curious comment will be much better received than a misinformed remark relating to their challenge.
Simply I feel one should “make” an attempt to understand as opposed to pretending or assuming they do understand. Some food for thought, do with it what you will, but hopefully I have clearly expressed myself. Once again my intent was not to have you all re-evaluate how you behave towards me, more to the point I would much rather you be concerned when “reacting” and “acting” towards others as opposed to me. This thought process also stems from my intentions to share my plans for my next many months, and the fact that I have not provided you all with much detail as to what lies ahead for me, outside of my drug schedules and check-ups. This will follow very shortly, in a message later today.
I’ll be in touch soon,
Geoff
#4
