When I was hospitalized as a child, most of the children I shared a room with were fighting cancer. Over and over again I saw first hand how sick the treatments made them. On occasion I would room with other Sickle Cell patients. One child in particular had suffered lasting brain damage from a stroke. I recognized at a young age how blessed I was to survive my stroke free of long term damage.
As an adult, with every monthly visit to my pain clinic, my eyes witness the severity of other people’s pain. Upon the faces of many patients in the waiting room, I observe the agony every move brings them. The unrelenting discomfort from lost or deformed limbs is written upon the expressions of many. It’s abundantly clear to me that some people’s suffering is far worse than mine.
It’s easy to become solely focused on the hardship you face in your own life. It may be a temptation to judge a healthy person and think “I have all these problems, miss half my class time, keep a 4.0 G.P.A., work two jobs and you can’t even get a passing grade in Gym class?!” I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea.
The thing to remember is, you can’t look into every aspect of a person’s life. Yes, he/she may be perfectly healthy, but you don’t know what’s going on inside their head, home, or heart. There are issues in life other than medical problems that can cause people to have pain greater than yours.
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