Humor me

I was reading about faux pas related to Cancer patients on a blog yesterday and thought I should share one of my own. I am sure on a day-to-day basis we would come across many such incidents, totally unrelated to cancer, and have been responsible for a few of them ourselves, although it is just human to err, do we know that we might be hurting someone sometimes?

On my flight from Adelaide to Singapore I had this aisle seat behind a huge guy who had decided to sleep the entire journey. So, his seat was reclined almost always except when the flight attendants reminded him otherwise. I was uncomfortably watching the movies on the little screen and each time he moved I had to adjust the screen accordingly. I was annoyed and made a mental note to see his face. When I was getting ready to alight at Singapore, I noticed that he was probably a fellow Indian or maybe one of our friendly neighborhood countrymen! Not wanting to have any conversation with him I just turned pretending not having seen him.

I was obviously not good at pretending, since the guy whom I detested for the past few hours, managed to ask me how my flight was! Not wanting to be impolite, I just bluntly replied that it was OK (of course sitting behind him didn't help, but how could I say that to a stranger!). I was slightly happy when people started moving so that I could lose him on the way out. I did for a few seconds only to realize a little bit later that he was right behind me asking me about Adelaide. Apparently he was visiting this place for a conference and felt that the city had not changed in the past 20 years and it was a "sleepy little town". Now, I hardly knew this city 20 years ago, I love it now, so didn't have much to comment. Seeing my resistance his next question was my reason for visiting Singapore. When I said that it was for my father's treatment, his response took me off guard. He explained that his father had undergone a surgery 3 weeks ago and did not take it too well and passed away in a few days. Like that was the most important thing for me to know about right then!

I am sure he didn't mean ill, but when someone is concerned about a family member is it really necessary to bring up things that might hurt them? The thing that worried me more was that he was hardly depressed about what had happened to his father. In fact he was even joking saying that his old man didn't pull through the surgery and asked me to speak to my father's surgeons. My thought was - is this an omen for Singapore! Some people!!!

But, reading other people's experiences made me laugh. One of them from a cancer patient -
Shortly after my husband and I both shaved our heads (his was for support of course), my husband was at a coffee place that he frequents regularly. The woman who regularly serves him asked about his shaved head. He explained my situation and another worker actually said, "Aw, I hope she makes it." WHAT?!

Another one I liked -
I lost about 70 pounds after my stomach cancer ordeal and I constantly have people come up to me and say, "Wow! You've lost a lot of weight! What's your secret?
"Stomach Cancer," I answer cheerily, "but I wouldn't recommend it."
That's always followed by "Oh I'm so sorry" and then tangible awkwardness.

Another from a doctor -
The doc was trying to console my husband who was dealing with his 39 yr old wife, mother of 5, being diagnosed with cancer.
He said, "Well, you have to die from something."

A cancer patient with a kiddo -
I work with children, and one little boy was looking at my face really hard one day [i was wearing my wig at this point, so he didn't know i was bald]. He put his hands on his hips and said to me -- "Ms. Captain, you don't have any eyebrows! Where'd they go?" He was genuinely concerned, so I said to him, "Well, they're part of the eyebrow union, so they're on their manditory three month vacation." He got a very concerned look on his face and asked me, "MY eyebrows aren't part of the 'onion' are they?"