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I was in the chemo ward, but I wasn’t dying. I had been diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma, but it was an indolent (lazy) kind of blood cancer. I’ve mostly been able to take it in stride. In fact, I was able to train for the NYC marathon while going through chemo.
A lot of chemo involves sitting in a chair for long hours at a time. You read the news, write Medium stories, and spend time on Facebook. But this last activity is a bad idea. Here’s my cautionary tale.
One of my Facebook friends is a colleague who happens to be one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met. She finds all the best content on Facebook (either that, or she writes it herself). While I was in the chair at Mt. Sinai, one of her shares came through.
It was about a woman who was managing a small LGBTQ bookstore when the phone rang. It was a suicidal man who had been living in the closet. He couldn’t continue to live in the shadows, but he knew his family would reject him if he came out. The manager had no formal training in suicide prevention. She just knew that the man couldn’t kill himself as long as he was on the phone, talking to her. The manager ignored the four or five customers in the store, desperately trying to extend the conversation and provide hope and support.
After 45 minutes, the manager was running out of things to say, and was starting to panic. At that moment, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see one of the customers hold out her hand for the phone. The customer simply…