#chadtough

Chad is Chad Carr, grandson of former UM football coach Lloyd Carr. He was diagnosed with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma 15 months ago. With the best treatment available at UM hospitals, he's exceeded the 9-12 month diagnosis but today it was announced that Chad will be entering hospice care.

His plight has galvanized the UM community into creating a support system for Chad, which of course is a wonderful thing. But I ponder who it's really all for, and I suspect that the answer is slightly different for each and every person who've supported Chad in some active way.

There will be some who were/are genuinely moved by the plight of a young child who is within their sphere of influence, and glad that their active support made a tangible difference. But I fear that there is a not insignificant portion who have read of his plight and felt some sort of sympathy - but the real goal was to reassure themselves that they are capable of compassionate feelings and somehow good because of that. I'm not sure that I'm making sense. I guess the point is that I fear that we as a nation are losing the capacity for empathy, and this is a root cause for a lot of the problems we have nowadays.

Robin Williams

This morning I read that Robin Williams had been diagnosed with Parkinson's. More significantly, he'd also been diagnosed with lewy body dementia whose symptoms are similar to Alzheimer's but also include depression.

This has turned my brain into a mental Union Station with various trains of thought that I'm trying - and failing - to articulate like Einstein's unified field theory. i think i'm just going to try and list the times of departure and follow up on all this later:

1) I've made my grieving process about everyone else and put off staring into the abyss of the reality that someone tried to end my existence;

2) Not dealing with the anger may be part of why I'm struggling with depression;

3) My life would make a great TV comedy/dramedy

4) Humor can be driven by anger - or by joy & wonder - but it's still about largely about our frailties.

5) I need to dedicate more personal time just for dwelling on stuff like this;