This is something I've shared with some people about one of my experiences during my externship at CHOP. One of the patients I met was a fourteen year old girl, just starting her freshman year in high school. Those times are rough enough as it is. Anyways, jokes aside, I met her because she was a patient with a brain stem glioma (a type of cancer). Her life was far from normal with a history of eighteen surgeries in the short amount of time since she had been diagnosed. Her coordination was worsening as a result of the progression of her disease. She used a wheelchair to get around, and her left eye and the left side of her body were weakened.

With brain stem gliomas, there is not much medicine can do. We have yet to have found a cure for cancer. The brain stem is dangerous territory for neurosurgeons. And radiation and chemotherapy can only go so far, and both have adverse side effects.

Then the doctor asked the girl one question. I think the question was suppose to lead into a conversation about The Make A Wish Foundation where children with serious or terminal illnesses could have one wish granted. The doctor asked if she were to have one thing in the world, anything, what would she wish for? The girl replied "Friends. So that when things get harder I will have someone to fall back on."

The answer was heart-wrenching to hear. She did not ask for her disease to be healed, she did not ask for her normal life back. She knew things would get worse. And all she wanted was for people to be there for her when things do get worse.

There are a lot of things in life that we cannot grant, circumstances that are out of our control. However, the one thing we can do, an important thing we can do, is show compassion. To love one another as Jesus commanded us to do. Because life is not always easy. Times will get difficult. But none of that matters if we have someone to fall back on.