It's all relative

After everything I've seen Martha go through, it's left me a very cynical and unsympathetic person. When anyone complains of being ill, of having a cold, of being in pain I quickly change the subject without offering much more than a simple "oh, I'm sure you'll be OK!". Unless you have a toothache, for toothache you'll have my full sympathy - I would rather endure the pain of 10cm dilated labour contractions than have a toothache.

I love Facebook. I love sharing photos and checking-in to places when we're out and about. I love seeing what friends and family are up to. But then there are those who check-in at Hospital with cryptic captions and then when someone asks if they're OK the reply will almost always be "inboxed you, hun!" It's as if they do it for attention.

I think I can count on one hand how many times I've called in sick to work since I was 15. I rarely get ill anyway, but if I have a headache and don't feel great - I'll still go to work. If I have a bit of a cold - I'll still go to work. I always feel bad that I'd be letting someone down and someone else will need to cover my shift. Being a busy working Mum, I just don't have time to be sick so I just plod along and wait for Mark to come home, take over with parenting and make me a panad.

I compare everyone to Martha; if she can make it in and out of Open Heart Surgery in 4 days - then there's no need for anyone else to still be complaining about any type of procedure they had done months ago. I hold everyone to an impossibly high standard.

There's a quote I found online years ago, it says "Which Congenital Heart Defect is the worst? The one your child has!"

It makes me think sometimes, I can shrug off most ailments and illnesses because we've been through much worse - but something that might seem trivial to me could be the absolute end of the world to someone else. Just like something which would feel like the end of the world to me might seem trivial to another family who've had a harder time of things than us.

You can only cope with so much, unfortunately, we've had to deal with more than our fair share of family health worries. You never really know what anyone's else is going through, we should be kind and thoughtful always.

GM
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