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"It&amp;#039;s time to admit it: It&amp;#039;s hard for me to feel sorry for you when you have a cold. A garden variety flu? Poor baby. A stomach virus? Have some crackers. A sinus infection? Here&amp;#039;s a tissue. Now that I&amp;#039;ve been inducted into cancer&amp;#039;s version of the Hall of Justice, it&amp;#039;s hard to remember what life was like among regular citizens like you. You know those old cartoons starring Wonder Woman, Batman, Aquaman and the gang at the Justice League of America? They met at the Hall of Justice, where they&amp;#039;d respond to emergencies from the TroubAlert computer. Well, that&amp;#039;s what being a cancer survivor feels like, only without the Spandex and capes.  While people who&amp;#039;ve never been touched by cancer are blithely going about their days, the rest of us meet at our own sort of Hall of Justice \u2013 or perhaps, Hall of Injustice \u2013 where we worry about impending doom for us, our loved ones and our fellow members. Meetings are held online, on the phone, in hospitals, at treatment centers and in the waiting area at our oncologists&amp;#039; offices. And boy, do we have a lot to talk about.  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m afraid I&amp;#039;m heading downhill,&amp;quot; my hospital roommate, Virginia, told me yesterday when I called to check in. At 82, she had opted out of the rigors of chemotherapy, choosing instead to &amp;quot;wait it out,&amp;quot; which is oncology speak for &amp;quot;watch Access Hollywood while getting sicker and sicker and....&amp;quot; Well, I don&amp;#039;t want to scare the regular citizens.  But it&amp;#039;s not all gloom and doom. In the waiting area at my radiation treatments, a woman with breast cancer explained that, thanks to reconstructive surgery, the rose tattoo that had been on her behind was now on her chest. &amp;quot;I tell 20-somethings to consider that when they get tattoos,&amp;quot; she chuckled.   On a cancer support group web site, a fellow survivor posted a photo of herself in a black graduation cap and gown with a fluorescent blue wig as she stuck her tongue out. Others have uploaded shots of themselves sporting Mohawks. I added one of me, bald except for two plastic eyeballs stuck to the back of my head. The caption reads, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s true what they say about mothers.&amp;quot;  At the Hall of Injustice, the bald, the brave and the just plain beleaguered meet to make sense out of our lives. We can&amp;#039;t remember what it was like to be like you, complaining about some sniffles or worried about going to the dentist. We can&amp;#039;t remember what it was like to take our health for granted.  And so we meet, and we commiserate. As for you? Pass the tissues. Here in the Hall of Injustice, we need them more than you do here.   Oh, but gesundheit. Really now. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a2291/good-grief-022108/>