Perspective

There's nothing like hearing about someone Else's problems to put some perspective on yours. This weekend I've been bummed, to say the least, because of certain issues in my personal life. I've moped around, cried, and just been crabby. Then this morning I open my email to find a letter my sister had sent me. See, my almost 8 year old nephew, Caleb, suffers from seizures and has been struggling with this illness for quite some time now. He's been put on all kinds of medications and those are damaging other things. Like his organs!!! Lately, his kidneys. Which hits close to home, seeing as how i work with patients in kidney failure. It is so hard to imagine that such a small child could be put through so much. I would, as any in my family would, give an organ, cells, heck a leg, an arm, to cure him but there is nothing we can do and that just makes it worse. When you are a parent all you want to do is take your childs pain away-knowing that you can't is painful. Anyway my sister, who is the rock in our family, you could tell, is closing in on hitting rock bottom. All of a sudden my personal issues seemed so petty. So insignificant! Here I am "crying over spilled perfume" when my sister, my nephew and her whole immediate family really, is going through some real trials. So i've stopped crying over my own silly issues and decided to do all I can to help my sister. My problems are nothing compared to a child in pain. We could all learn from it really. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in our own lives that we forget that there are so many out there that are suffering. Not only is he sick but the insurance covers minimal things for his treatment. So they've spen thousands of dollars out of pocket and still have more than 15 months of just one treatment. If the meds do even more damage to his little body then there will be extra things to pay for. Who can afford to pay 800 dollars a month in medication? Health care sucks! I don't believe people should suffer because of how expensive the system is.
Anyway my message to all - pray. Pray for my nephew. and pray that we will all stop being so selfish and help those in need. And praying for me to find a couple hundred thousand to help them pay for medical expenses would be nice too!