Saturday 20 October 2012

Cancer, schmancer

I spent last night helping to man the phones at one of ScottishPower's call centres supporting the Channel 4 'Stand up to Cancer' campaign. the task was simple; to accept donations. I'm not sure what I expected, but it was an eye opener. By the end of the evening, I'd been through something of an emotional roller coaster, but I'd do it all again. One thing that did strike me was that an awful lot of help came from people who couldn't really afford to be all that generous, yet gave as much as they could. A large proportion of them were pensioners, and almost everyone had a story to tell about cancer.

One gentleman of over 70 had just had the all clear after having 27 lymph nodes removed and having had a course of chemo. He was crying as he spoke of watching the programme. "Kids shouldn't have to suffer that.", he said. A lot of this was tough to listen to, but I console myself with this thought. If it was hard to hear, it's a damn sight harder to live. Thanks if you contributed. Be well.