Ignorant people make me angry angry angry

B and I have a nice little morning coffee-and-newspaper ritual to start our day. He goes out to his 'place' and reads his section while I read mine, then we meet at the coffeemaker to trade off. Usually it's a nice, peaceful way to begin the day.

Today I picked up my section and read a letter in the editorials that lit my fire but good. I suppose it was too much to hope that he wouldn't see it, but when he came in upset I knew that he had. Here it is in all of its glory. It was too long to print all of it, but you get the point.

Don't Fight Nature's Way

The first-ever human trial of embryonic stem cell research has been
approved by the FDA. A biotechnology company in Menlo Park, CA plans
to start the first-ever treatment on up to 10 patients suffering from spinal
cord injuries. The treatment will consist of a one-time injection of
"glial" cells that the company thinks will restore nerve cells.

I find this to be a barbaric act. Abortion is one thing, but to
take a human life and turn it into a science project is completely
inhumane. Embryonic stem cell research should be banned
forever.

If someone has a disease IT WAS MEANT TO BE. People are born
every day and people die every day and that's just the way life works.

We need to quit fighting nature. Americans have such anxiety
over what "could happen". We need to quit worrying about
everything and just live life instead of trying to fight death. Instead of
worrying about "the dying", you should just start enjoying the lives we are
fortunate enough to have as Americans.

Nice. Just fricking nice.

Last night our neighbor friend came over to visit, distraught. His father, who had been feeling poorly for about four months, just got the news that he has an aggressive bone cancer which has metastasized quietly throughout his whole body during that time and he has less than three weeks left to complete his life's business. One of the things that he has to do in that time is not only to spend time with his first new grandbaby, but to go to the nursing home and tell his 90 year old parents that he's dying. I'm sure that his family would move mountains with their bare hands if they could change one iota of his diagnosis.

I hate people who come in with their quasi-religious "if you were only a better person you wouldn't have been punished with this affliction" crap. Are you telling me that those people don't use modern medicine when THEY are sick or hurting? Or that they wouldn't move heaven and earth if someone came to THEM and said "Hey, you have this incurable disease and it's going to be really miserable and then you die. We COULD treat you, but you have a moral objection to it, so.... enjoy your suffering and revel in the thought that you will be revered as a good little martyr on the other side." Please.

We know that my husband has a disease and that though he didn't earn it, he can't change it, so we do the best we can to make our way through this blessed life despite it. But it doesn't stop us from hoping and praying and greeting every new thing with the hope that this will be the thing that arrests the disease where it stands.

I know this is a rant. I'm really sorry. This post is the only thing stopping me from logging onto the newspaper and posting a venomous reply letter, which, since they read the same paper at my workplace, would only stir up the pot. Those kinds of people, by the careless things that they say, are really saying to B "Your pain, your fear, and your future does not matter. Just deal with it." And that makes me livid.

Before he read that letter this morning his symptoms were at his normal around-a-two range. After he found that little gem, they were up around six. I wish I could protect him from things like this but I can't all the time and it frustrates me to no end.