Does anyone wonder what would happen if you suddenly became sick? As in really sick? I do. If I came down with a chronic illness, I really don't know how I would deal with it or how I would pay my bills. I've always thought I'm too young to get anything really bad, but truthfully, I'm not. One of my oboe friends who can't be any older than me, just emailed me and has spent the summer recovering from surgery. We went to go see "Wicked" together in June. That night she kept complaining that her stomach was growling nonstop. I just thought she ate something bad and didn't think anything else of it. Well, it got worse and she finally went to her doctor and was found to be severely anemic. Nothing showed up on a CT scan of her abdomen (anemia in someone over 40 is colon cancer until proven otherwise). A few days later, she became really ill, went to the hospital, was rushed to the OR where they found she had colon cancer that had spread to some lymph nodes. She's spent her whole summer recovering and trying to deal with chemotherapy. The whole thing just sucks. I don't know what else to say about it. She's really lucky she has a good job and mostly likely good benefits, but missing work that much has got to be a financial strain. But in the end, I hope she is concentrating more on getting better rather than worrying about money.

This has me freaked out. I've never really thought about how I would handle a life threatening illness. I cannot afford to get sick. In residency, there is no such thing as sick. If you are breathing, then you better be at work. Funny how the medical community that cares so much about healing people tends to have the opposite opinion toward their own. I like to joke around about how "nurses eat their young", but in reality doctors do it much worse. This is a good cue for me to quit smoking. Again. For good.