Horrible real stories

Being trusted as a confidant is not always that good. Sometimes you wonder how much you can take in. What else are you going to hear that you have never heard before? How much can humans endure and yet survive? The more you hear, the more you get surprised by this weird creature called human.

I had seen her several times in various dinners and movie nights of our mutual friends. She is usually very silent, and recently she was skipping several events. I thought she had broken up with my friend and was not dating him anymore. Last time she mentioned to me that she has Lyme disease, and that her treatments exhaust her and oftentimes she does not have enough energy to come out. I did not know much about that disease. I asked her for more information. She described how no insurance considers it a legitimate illness and no insurance covers her treatments. How she was a successful engineer in our center and she ended up quitting her job. I felt so sad and sorry for her. Imagine living your life happily and successfully and one nice day, walking out doors, or maybe camping, you get bitten by a tick and your life changes forever. So, that was the extent I got to know her: she was an engineer, originally from Vietnam, who now has Lyme disease.

I saw her again last night. Naturally, I asked her how she was feeling, and how her treatments were going. She told me she is getting ready for a treatment. The fact that doctors think she can now go through it means her body is strong enough to endure it, and that after the treatment she would be better. So, she was happy about that; but the process itself is painful and drains all her energy. The topic of costs and insurance companies came up again. I asked how she has been managing all these years without working.

She mentioned "I had a good job; I was moving up. I was a manager when I quit. I was lucky that I was not the kind of person who has to buy many things or spend so much money to be happy. I had a lot of savings and had bought a house. I had to sell my house to afford treatments. I have been living off of that money. I was so sad when I sold my house. You know for us you work so hard to prove yourself in a new country, being young, a woman, and immigrant all works against you, and to lose all that, I was very sad". She said how she was in bed shaking from illness when she was signing the papers to sell her house, that she could not even move downstairs behind a table or to the agent's office; that she had no friends or family to help her.

Just as I thought I had heard it all, she kept going. You know I had worked very hard for my house; It was my blood and sweat. I was four when I came here. Before that, I was arrested in Vietnam. They put me in prison. They tortured me for information about my parents and relatives but I did not know anything. A four year old kid? I could not believe it. They gave her electric shocks? No .....she kept going. They made boys have sex with their mothers and made her watch it ... it was hard just listening to it. How could a kid go through this? How come she is all of a sudden saying all these things to me? It is as if she had found someone to talk to after so long. "How did you get over all that?", I asked. "With a lot of therapy", she said. She went on how she was here with no parents, and lived with an old aunt that she had to take care of, and she had no one to look after her, and how she was a target for many guys who wanted to take advantage of her. I knew she was very religious too. She said my faith and my sense of humor got me through. I could have become very bitter. No kidding, I was surprised she was not. How could she not? and how could she pray to a God who watched all this happen to her and did not do anything about it? I would be an angry bitter atheist to say the least. Well, I am glad it helped her survive and keep her sanity.

I suggested now that she is not working, maybe she can campaign for Lyme disease so that insurance companies accept its treatment costs. She said she does. She is an activist for that cause. I thought she could write her stories too. It has historic value. You see movies or read books and you think such things belong to many many many years ago, ... and then you get to know someone you thought you knew; It was beyond my wildest dreams hearing her stories. You hear stories of such people struggling with one thing or another all their life and making it through somehow without being angry or bitter to anyone.... and you realize you have no excuse not to enjoy life and all its blessings or to treat anyone unkindly.