Happy Halloween!

Today is Halloween. But we will not have trick or treaters until Friday night. Significant portions of the town do not have power and there are still trees downed all over the place.

We had a little storm on Sunday night with wind gusts here to around 50 mph but other places on the coast in the 80-90 mph. A little hurricane came up the east coast and joined up with another front moving east across the country. Their little party was slammed by a Canadian cold front which turned into a massive storm. We got 5" (just think if that was snow) of rain. So no trick or treating for safety's sake for a few days. (But I think all the smart kids are going to get their parents to take them to another town tonight and then back home on Friday so they can trick or treat twice.)

But I digress. Years ago, all my friends and I would dress up in our costumes and go to parties for Halloween. That was possible because we were in our twenties and had the ability to stay up after 10 pm and didn't really care how we looked like. And it was all about having fun.

One year, a friend showed up in regular clothes. We all asked her what her costume was. She said she was a serial killer 'because they looked like everyone else'.

This now makes me think. When you have cancer, you usually pretty much look like yourself and get around, until your cancer progresses and life starts to really suck because it includes a deadline.

So along that thinking, I could dress up as a cancer patient and say 'because we look like everyone else'. Or I could dress up as a rheumatoid arthritis/fibromyalgia patient for the same reason. (Or because my leg is in a big brace, I could dress up as Captain Hook with a peg leg... But that might be too much work.)

My point is that we can easily overlook people because their diseases do not show. We may have some very significant ailments that greatly impact our lives but they do not show to the rest of the world. We are just regular people with health issues. Do we need special treatment? Maybe, maybe not, or maybe just a handicapped parking space. Just remember that appearances can be deceiving and we can be hiding a lot under our normal appearances.