With the polls closed, the historic presidential election is finally over.
If you’re an Obama/Biden supporter, congratulations. Celebrate and enjoy the moment, because in the morning, the work begins. As the expression goes – “Put up or shut up” – well, it’s time to ‘put up’.
If you’re a McCain/Palin supporter, the disappointment will linger for a little while, but as John McCain said, you’ve got to “move on”.
If you didn’t even care about the election, well, I don’t know what’s going to motivate you… if this election didn’t.
We, as a country, have some serious problems. And, like cancer research, I believe that the quickest way to solve these is through collaboration. I pray that our political leaders will not define themselves by the “D” or “R” or “I” after their names but by an “A” – for American.
And, yes, for the sake of all the kids who have been diagnosed – and yet to be diagnosed – with cancer, I hope our leaders will place an emphasis on the health of our children. Too many children are suffering and too many are dying!
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If you’re reading this on Election Night, there are parties going on all around the country. Some are celebrating, some are crying. For perspective though, let me tell you what some families are doing right now.
Mom or Dad is sitting in a cold hospital room with one of those paper thin hospital-issued blankets wrapped around them. The room has that unmistakable hospital smell to it. S/he is sitting in her chair/bed. For you, that chair would be an uncomfortable excuse for a bed. For her, it’s the last thing she’s thinking about. She’s just happy to have it. She is watching her son in that industrial-type hospital bed; concentrating on watching his chest rise and fall with every breath. So long as her baby’s chest goes up and down, they’re still in the battle. There are constant interruptions from well-intentioned nurses, doctors, and therapists coming into the room. Mom and son have absolutely no privacy. There are constant noises from the various machines. A NON-STOP variety of noises. She knows those noises so well that when a certain alarm goes off, she jumps. Her child is on a Q4 or Q6 schedule which determines how often he gets blood work. If she ever thought she was nervous about getting test grades in school, it’s NOTHING compared to getting lab results. At the risk of being a pain in the butt, she pesters the nurse to get the labs as soon as they’re back. She scans the results at 100 mph knowing just what lines to focus on. Is her son slipping or taking a baby step forward? Unfortunately, critically ill kids tend to take baby steps in improvement, but can slide very fast in the wrong direction. So, by looking at the labs, she knows whether a transfusion is coming or a unit of platelets or whether she can expect to see serious bleeding in the next few hours from the wound that they weren’t able to close. Also, she’s thinking about tomorrow’s schedule – is it an MRI of her child’s brain, a CT of another part of the body, a bone marrow biopsy to check the meningitis, or a trip to Interventional Radiology for what is becoming a routine (but frustrating) re-positioning of a ND/NJ tube (feeding tube). She watches the clock because in another 10 minutes, she needs to disturb her child to lift him up so that she and a nurse can re-position the pillows under him. This will, hopefully, protect him from pressure sores. She will do this every 2-3 hours, 24 hours a day. And, she doesn’t mind – except that it’s painful to him. She hasn’t eaten in many, many hours and she really doesn’t care. She gets up every 15-20 minutes to check her son’s temperature because he’s been running a fever – for the last 4-6 WEEKS! His head is soaking wet so she knows this round is ‘breaking’. Time for the ice chips in the wash cloth that the therapist taught her. All the hours of the day are pretty much the same since the fight goes on 24 hours a day. But, she still feels a little better when the sun comes up, because she knows they’re in the battle for another day.
She turns on the television and sees that the outside world is both celebrating and crying over an election.
And, you know what, this is only a fraction of the hell that this Mom, Dad, brother, sister, family are going through. There are thousands of families right now in this position.
Why do I mention this? Do I want you to feel guilty about celebrating/crying over an election? Absolutely not! You should feel passionately about it. More people should. I applaud ALL of the candidates, their families, and their volunteers for the enormous sacrifices that they have made in their pursuit to represent us.
BUT, PLEASE don’t ever forget the ‘others’…Those of us who ‘live’ (or have ‘lived’) in the hospitals. Those poor kids who certainly didn’t do anything wrong, but are now battling these terrible, terrible diseases. These little boys and girls are true American heroes! May our elected leaders NEVER forget them.
God bless you and may God bless America!!!
Live Like Andrew –– B+
Ali’s & Andrew’s Dad
