It's My Birthday!

Today I am 36 years old. Or as Aaron likes tease me, I can now round up to 40.

The first two years I worked as a nurse, I worked oncology (cancer). Wow, that was hard. I was 22 when I started, newly married, etc. I ended up deciding not to continue working oncology when we moved to NC because it was beginning to mess with my mind. In my "world" back then, 95% of the people I met had cancer. Since I saw the sickest cancer patients, I saw many pass away. By the time we moved to NC I was having nightmares all the time that I had cancer. Almost every time I went to work, I would find out another one of our regular patients had passed away. It was really really getting to me.

Something good came out of me working oncology for so long. I appreciate growing older. Here is a story that I remember to this day. I even remember the patient's name 13 years later. He was around 33. He was married and had two little boys. He had hodgkins disease, which is very curable, but not 100% curable and he was one of the unlucky few that was not. One day, because of some equipment hooked up to him, I had to accompany him to xray. His wife went too. I couldn't help but hear their conversation. His wife said "you know, I used to dread growing older, but now I would give anything to grow older with you" He died within 6 months of diagnosis.

Wow,