You get what you get

The three drug reps were talking in the lunchroom among themselves, but loud enough for me to hear them from the hallway. All three of them young and healthy, all three of them looking at their latest drug's new development/testing results/data from a strictly clinical selling point of advantages over the old drugs/competition. One young lady put it simply: "where you used to get two years, now you get three years." I thought to myself...smiling as I walked..."you don't have a clue, little girl."

We were so busy at the cancer center yesterday, I had no time to offer these young ladies a different perspective on their drug and its data. I would have LOVED to have said to them:
"I know you're bragging on your drug here, but always remember that in those three years you're talking about, some people "got" five years, some people only "got" one. You have a three year average to talk about today, but in reality, there's a whole new crowd of folks just like me.....waiting for the new drug regimen...not even part of the numbers, yet. People like me who are determined to by-pass the life-expectancy you're talking about. People who are determined to blow that three-year average out of the water. We were not a part of your clinical trials and we are not yet, as long as we are breathing, reduced to an average of life expectancy for your drug. When it comes down to it, ladies, the fact of the matter is you get what you get and that's it. Not one day more, not one day less."

Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't offended or angry or upset by what I had overheard. I think nurse Gail thought it might have bothered me in some way. Had I had any time to sit and talk with her, I would have said: I know this is part of the deal of hanging out with you guys once a week. I know this kind of casual talk about people's lives is just a clinically medical way to receive information and deal with the enormous responsibility of treating the catastrophically
ill. I am totally fine with that. But there is a part of me that wants those drug reps to understand the other side of the fence, that we, the human beings waiting with ready veins and hope for the life-saving or life-extending drugs they sell have not yet been factored in. And some of us will not want to know about the extra year, because we don't consider ourselves part of the mix....part of the data...we were not in the study...and we will have extra years.

After a day like yesterday in the office as a volunteer, when things were crazy busy, and several patients were struggling with their latest turn of events, I was left feeling so downright grateful.
Grateful for the life I live. Grateful for the treatment I have been given. Grateful for the way everyone who has had anything to do with my care over these almost eight years has never once
put me in a box of numbers and results and data. Grateful for a staff of friends who are on the same page with me, knowing that we get the days, weeks, months, and years that we are given by God and that's what we get. No more, no less.

And when you come to realize that about life, when you really get that concept, it can free you up
and let you make your journey through the rest of your life rich, and fun, and meaningful. Despite your disease, despite your circumstances, despite what the drug reps have to say.
We all get what we get and we need to honor God by making the most of it.

"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." Proverbs 27:1