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Who said optimism is the best policy?

Last night, sitting in front of the TV watching Ghost Whisperer and Womens Murder Club, there were all sorts of things running through my mind.

Mostly I was thinking about how just about everything seems to take on more significance since my diagnosis.

I've certainly become more passionate about social issues, mostly health care, but now I'm even in support of illegal immigrants as well. I just want everyone to contribute their fair share for the services we all require, instead of allowing some in society to leech off the hard work of all the law abiding citizens and non citizens in this country.

Immigration reform is the only way we're ever going to solve the health care crisis, and other vital issues confronting this country, and is the one thing George Bush may have gotten right.

But I digress!

Last night after installing a new RSS/Atom feed reader, which aids the reading and reviewing of other peoples blogs, I started reviewing a few blogs, several of which I hadn't read since swearing off the reading of most blogs a while back.

I wish I hadn't done that, because I learned Cathy Seipp, a freelance journalist who wrote columns for a number of newspapers, magazines etc. and her own blog, Cathy's World, died of lung cancer back in March.

So why this came as such a shock to me is not completely clear.

After all, I didn't know Cathy, other than from her blog, nor did I even agree with many of her views, plus I knew she had lung cancer (she talked about it on her blog). Still she was a fellow cancer survivor, and that seems to transcend all other issues.

Plus even though I knew Cathy had lung cancer, I thought she had the cancer under control, and assumed she would defeat it. It never crossed my mind she would die, and certainly not two weeks after I swore off reading most blogs.

I guess that's why it's so much easier being a pessimist, you're never disappointed.
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