When fate decides to take a crap on you, then kick you while you're down--or why I should never complain again. [View all]

Last night, we had dinner with an old friend of ours. My wife has known him for longer than I have, and I have known him for almost 50 years, when he was still a medical student.

He was always a happy guy, sometimes a little naïve, but fun, and the perfect guy to be a doctor, with a great ability to connect with patients, treat and reassure them.

He completed his studies, opened a practice, married and had two children. We were never out of touch.

Then, one day, he told us his wife had left him for a guy 15 years her junior. His kids took his side, and were appalled. But he eventually got over it, and remarried a very nice woman whom we liked very much. We were at their wedding. His practice was going well, and he dedicated several weeks out of the year to work for free in sub-Saharan Africa for Doctors Without Borders, usually Kenya or Sudan.

About eight years ago, that life came crashing to an end. He suffered a massive stroke, and then two minor ones after that. He was in a coma for about two months, and woke up a vegetable. He crawled his way back to consciousness, but couldn't move for months. He gradually recovered some mobility, but was, and remains, a physical basket case. His wife suddenly found herself a full-time nurse to an invalid, and though she has stuck with him, they have had to blow their savings trying to stay afloat. She has had to take a few short vacations on her own just maintain her sanity. State help is minimal, and he is terrified of being institutionalized. His son came down with a glioblastoma, and died at age 41, and his daughter hasn't been able to cope with her dad's new reality. She has broken off contact. In the meantime, he has also had melanoma in twelve places and parts of his body look like a patchwork quilt where malignancies have been removed. He is in the intermediate stages of Parkinson's disease as well. As a physician, he is perfectly aware of the awful shape he is in, as well as the prospects of recovery (none). He wavers back and forth between self-pity and shame at having to demand so much from other people. We tried to talk of old times and get his mind off his predicament for a while, but it is omnipresent.

Any time I think I might have problems, someone please remind me of my doctor friend.