I abandoned Dante but HE IS BACK. Level 8 has lots of levels.... Bolgia 1.

So conscious fraud and trenchery.... interesting if you think about it. The other levels are a myriad of bad human behavior like murder but deep in hell and in Dante's mind this was worse.


Bolgia 1: Panderers and seducers march in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped by demons  Just as the panderers and seducers used the passions of others to drive them to do their bidding, they are themselves driven by demons to march for all eternity.


Pandering: is the act of expressing one's views in accordance with the likes of a group to which one is attempting to appeal. 

In cancer world we really don't get much of this, at least at Seattle Children's.  We do see the adds for places that are almost guaranteeing a cure but they must have anti-pandering classes all the time for everyone.  As parents we have a list of stuff we want to hear.  We want to hear only about unicorns and rainbows and that there was a mistake and it is all over.  

We do a fair amount of "Self-Pandering" .  We often don't want to hear the truth and we do what we can to make sure we only hear the things we want to hear.  She will be okay, she will have a long full life, she will be able to have children because 1% is really good. 

Maybe there was a special level in Hell for panderers because as a group, we fall so easily for the good news. 

Seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person, to lead astray, as from duty, rectitude, or the like; to corrupt.

I read this and laughed a bit inside.  Oh are we easily seduced as a group.  Just watch 2 minutes of commercials.  Creams and pills and instant weight loss.

Our biggest fault is if we just follow the rules, inject poison and death ray our children, it will all be okay. Maybe just one more round, one more poison.  Maybe if we just give it time, maybe if.....

We are all seduced into thinking it is going to be okay.  Sometimes it is not. 

I don't think there is any harm in hope and I believe in Unicorns 



 

Level 7.... Middle Ring. Suicides and Profligates.

Middle ring: In this ring are suicides and profligates (1). The suicides – the violent against self – are transformed into gnarled thorny bushes and trees and then fed upon by Harppy (2).
 The trees are a metaphor for the state of mind in which suicide is committed.    Dante learns that these suicides, unique among the dead, will not be corporally resurrected after the final judgement since they gave away their bodies through suicide; instead they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the thorny limbs.

 The other residents of this ring are the profligates, who destroyed their lives by destroying the means by which life is sustained – i.e., money and property. They are perpetually chased and mauled by ferocious dogs. The destruction wrought upon the wood by the profligates' flight and punishment as they crash through the undergrowth causes further suffering to the suicides, who cannot move out of the way.

Oh, won't this be a pleasant place to spend some time.  Thorny bleeding trees being eaten by shrieking woman/bird creatures  and ferocious dogs.  I am sure if this was well known to the general population they would avoid both.  I bet those guys on Wall Street are a bit worried. 

Those of us in Cancer world feel like we have done our time in this ring of hell.  While we did not commit suicide, we feel we have given the lives of our children over to be saved and it sure feels like suicide.  We have lost control of their lives and have little or now way to know if we have done a bad thing or a good thing.  We let them be filled with poison and radiation that does very bad things for a very long time.

We feel battered by ferocious dogs that rip and tear at our very souls.  Every day you learn something new.  Something that rips your soul out and stomps on it a bit more. 

Let's see what was today's lesson.  Jaxon, a cute little 18 month old with downs will not have to worry about cancer anymore.  They tried just one last thing and it failed.  Twice this family has been told "No More".  But this time it is over. I was lucky enough to see his mom and give her a long hard, I am so so sorry Hug...  Nothing more to do.  Wishing Jaxon only rainbows..

Sometimes it is too hard to think about.  Level Seven, Middle Ring might be an okay place.



1. Profligates.... I know I am supposed to know these things... Wasteful, extravagent, spend thrift.....

2.Harpies:a foul malign creature in Greek mythology that is part woman and part bird. 2. a : a predatory person : leech. b : a shrewish woman.

level 7

Outer ring: This ring houses the violent against people and property. Sinners are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood and fire, to a level commensurate with their sins: Alexander the Great is immersed up to his eyebrows.


I am not above violence. I try to avoid it and I think I should get a medal for being so good most of the time.

I did not use the Roman Candle or fire crackers in the hospital.  When they refused to bring me a big sharp knife with which to cut bread, I brought my own from home and then never once Brandished it......  They never called Code Purple on me.  I only occasionally correct those who use whom incorrectly.  We have only complained at three of the three restaurant we visited and only stomped out on one.

I think I might end up in Level Seven, ring one.  If that is where Alexander the Great is hanging out, it might be interesting.   I am sure I would be in the boiling river of blood up to my knees or here.....  

Oh, Level Five,,,, WE get there by being Angry....... Boy are we

In the swamp-like water of the river Styx, the wrathful fight each other on the surface, and the sullen lie gurgling beneath the water, withdrawn "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe."

I am one of the Wrathful..... fighting everyone all the time with little or no control over what I say or how I say it.  

I try to be nice.  I try and I really do but there is so little of my being protecting the angry hostile sullen gurgling being that lies beneath a rather calm exterior left.

When your child reports someone make fun of their shoes most moms have an instant reaction to crush the offender.  It is unreasonable and complicated but it is real. Cancer only makes it worse

There are many paths to anger.  Each of us arrive there at different times and different reasons.  Frustration, disappointment, fear anxiety (DAFF).  We have to quickly leave those big four or they will simply eat us alive.  Anger is the release, the pressure valve.  How often do you hear the someone "vented" their anger at the poor barrister. 

By the time we are sitting in the emergency room or the doctors office after the blood tests or the "scan" there is so much fear and anxiety built  up anger is so close to the surface.  It has to come out at some point and head in some direction.  Something at some point has to give......

I think back to all the poor recipients of my wrath.... I am really good at it.  I can take down the best of them with a rage and a vocabulary that is scary.  Just ask Josh, the poor Security Guy.  I don't want to be a Children's so when I have been there twice in one day and he has seen me leave with Mary-Elizabeth an hour earlier, I am not nice to him when he decides I have not given him enough attention.  I had my badge, I had it on, it is current and he misses the chance to see it when I walk by him, he was not expecting my invective when he tried to stop me.... big mistake.   He won't forget who I am again....... 

We all have a certain length to our fuse.  My fuse was beginning to lengthen again but it was certainly snipped when Cancer part 2 rolled around.    My consolation is there will be lots and lots of my peeps on Level 5.  I am sure I will be able to fight with them and when that is just too exhausting I will slip down an restore myself with the sullen.... 

Here is my apology for all the snarky, unreasonable outbursts and down right nasty things I have said and done over the past few years.  I wish I could say I was done with all of that but we seem to keep keeping on....