Toppers

Comparing notes on how you feel is a good process, especially if you are talking with someone with the same issue.  Although those discussions give you new information, they won’t make you feel better or dry your tears.  As we age the aches and pains pile up, so at cocktail parties the conversations sound like sick cats at the vet’s office.  As we age our organs age with us, but not all at the same pace or in sequence.  This includes a fading immune system bombarded with all kinds of viruses real and artificial.  No one wins in these comparisons, but that doesn’t stop toppers from one upping us.  No one has a monopoly on this, but don’t use it yourself to make people feel better.

Toppers, people who always top whatever point you make, are everywhere especially in business.  When I was running a hospital in Oklahoma the CEO of the big hospital in town invited Melody Trimble, R.N. and I out to his office to break bread.  After riding the elevator up 20 floors and passing through a gauntlet of security guards we were ushered into this massive office.  To impress us he opened the curtains with a remote control unveiling a panorama of the city.  With the sun in our eyes the conversation just went downhill from there.  Whenever I brought up the quality of our doctors; his all trained at Harvard.  Whenever Melody mentioned our high patient satisfaction; he described his patient satisfaction as 1000%.  So when he took a breath for a restroom break we snuck down the back stairway.  Out in the parking lot I asked Melody, “what’d you think of that session?”  Without blinking she said, “I think he missed one of the belt loops on the back of his pants.”

One upmanship gets old and it isn’t helpful especially when you’re dealing with a new ailment.  Although it’s true that I’ve gotten cancer more times than pockets on shirts, I don’t mention it when I’m talking with someone just diagnosed.  It simply doesn’t make you feel better when someone tells you “Oh yeah I had that too.”  By example we had a cockatiel named Timothy that flew away from our house in Oklahoma.  I told my sons, “When I was your age I had a parakeet named Timothy that flew away too.”  Devin asked me, “Will your Timothy bring our Timothy back?”  (Stupid Stupid Father Syndrome). What does help is walking them through your experience, the good and the bad, and ending with “And you’ll survive this too.”  Finally, it is really important to tell people about the Holy Trinity of Survival – Faith, Family, and Good Healthcare.   Battling disease needs you to put all of your oars in the water, so don’t leave any of them on the beach. Slainte.