Last summer, five year old Rebecca Meyers was diagnosed with brain cancer. It was one of those bizarre situations where, aside from the malignant mass growing in her brain, she seemed to be really lucky. Her family was vacationing far from home but near one of the best hospital she could hope to go to, and multiple family members and family friends were vacationing close enough to support her parents during the first few weeks. The tumor extraction was a miracle of modern medicine.
Seven months later her brain is lighting up with new tumors. She may not live long enough to have her Make-a-Wish Foundation wish granted.
I’ve been reading her father’s updates since she was diagnosed. I have no connection to the family, but he’s a good writer and it’s a naturally dramatic story. I didn’t realize till I read that she was definitely going to die that I had taken the initial luck as some sort of promise. Subconsciously I believed that someone/thing must have arranged things so that she could receive such good care, and they wouldn’t bother unless they knew they could manage to pull her out on the other side. I feel betrayed, and it’s definitely because of the initial good fortune, not the intervening positive results.
Maybe being by Children’s Hospital of Philidelphia was random chance. Maybe there really was something magic taking care of her, but it ran out of juice or was given a higher priority or just screwed up. And now a little girl is going to die and it just feels so unfair.
Aceso Under Glass 