What's the Point?

by David Goldman

I don’t understand people who constantly complain. I have a friend who I met at a diabetic mini-camp when I was 10 years old. At that time, he was recently diagnosed and was still getting acclimated to life as a diabetic. At the time, he was very unhappy which I thought that was normal for someone who had just found out.

But he’s been that way for the last 45 years. Like me, he’s undergone a kidney and pancreas transplant so he is no longer diabetic and has full kidney function. He’s also had some minor problems with his eyes and very mild neuropathy so one of his feet gets a bit numb on occasion. But he can live a fairly normal life right now. He does have to take the anti-rejection drugs that come with some risks and some side effects and go through regular blood tests to make sure his transplanted organs are functioning properly, but they’re still better than being a diabetic with no kidney function or even worse than that.

Yet, whenever I talk to him he complains. I’ve heard everything from the pills are making him fat (which they can do) to how unfair “all of this” has happened to him.  I remind him it always could be worse. I tell him to remember when he was on dialysis there were times he was so weak he had to leave the clinic in a wheelchair, or that he was lucky that his eye disease occurred at a time when he could be successfully treated and have his vision saved. While he acknowledges that things could be worse, he always ends up dwelling on the things he had to go through. The last time we spoke I tried to get him to concentrate on the positive by telling him something that happened to me a number of years ago.

I was 22 years old and at Mayo Clinic to see if they could do anything to save the vision in my right eye. The doctors told me there was a slim chance they could. They estimated it at about 15%. Not great odds, but if I did nothing I was going to lose the vision in that eye for sure. The surgery was the next day. I was lying on a gurney in pre-op and the curtain separating me from the patient next to me was partially pulled back so we could see each other’s faces. I was feeling somewhat sorry for myself. Chances were, I was going to be blind in one eye for the rest of my life and it was hard to see (pardon the pun) past that. I looked at the person on the gurney to my right. He was probably around the same age, maybe a little older, and I asked him, “So what are you here for?” He slowly turned his head to me and said, “Malignant brain tumor”. I heard that and told myself I would never feel sorry for myself again. I realized I was in an institution that is a last resort for a lot of people and while saving vision in one eye was important, I knew there was always something worse.

My pancreas donor’s mother once said something to me that really struck me. This was about a year and a half after she lost her daughter to a car accident (June 6^th & 7^th). She said everyone always asks her how she’s doing and she always says she’s doing fine because she thought that was what they wanted to hear. She said if she told the truth, that she felt horrible because her daughter was gone forever and she felt like giving up, the listener would give a generic “it will take time until you’re better” response and quickly try to change the subject.

I think the same is true to a certain extent when you have a chronic disease or condition. People will ask how you’re doing out of politeness and concern, but do they really want to hear the details? Especially the negative details? Most likely not. I do share those kinds of things with my close friends and family, but most of the time I just say I’m doing fine, which is the truth. Yes, I may have some sort of problem going on but I can’t see the point in broadcasting it. So to go through one’s entire medical litany of problems like this friend does just doesn’t seem necessary. I’ve thought that maybe it makes him feel better to spill his guts but then I immediately think that he never sounds any better.

Maybe some of us are just naturally cup half full types and the rest are cup half empty types and that can’t ever be changed. It seems as if, generally speaking, the complainers always find something to complain about.  When someone asks if dialysis is difficult, I tell them that the time commitment is a pain in the butt, but each time I enter the hospital’s clinic and see how sick some people are, I honestly consider myself lucky. When my friend goes to do his regular lab work every three months, he never fails to complain about the bruise he gets where the needle was inserted.

I suppose everyone’s problems are big to them. It’s all relative. Your biggest problem is your biggest problem and you can’t really compare it to my biggest problem. But in a way you can. If your problem isn’t truly life threatening you can be happy that you’re not that guy with the malignant brain tumor who was lying next to me. You can be happy that you’re here, able to enjoy another day.