"I want to be healthy again," she wrote.

"I want to be healthy again.

"I want to be healthy again."

My wonderful friend, who has lung cancer.

I was taken aback, as those are the exact same words I spoke out loud on my couch this morning. After about five hours, my body had decided that was it... no more sleeping. My back hurt too much to continue lying in bed. I moved to the couch, which usually helps, but I couldn't get comfortable.

My back hurt. My head and sinuses hurt from the cold I've recently developed. My nose ran. I sniffled. I sighed with frustration and exhaustion. I thought about the anti-inflammatory that was prescribed for me, the one I've been afraid to take.

"Just take it with food, because this medicine can be particularly harsh on your stomach. You might experience vomitting or diarrhea. And don't take any over the counter anti-inflammatories at the same time, or you could experience stomach bleeding."

Thanks, Mr. Pharmacist.

I lied there, wondering whether or not to take it, thinking about my last doctor's diagnosis: "You're too fat."

Okay, those weren't his exact words, but that IS what he said my problem was. Bastard. Way to inspire me to be healthy. All I wanted to do when he said that is crawl under a blanket and sleep for a year.

I laid my hands on my stomach and thought about a time when I didn't have this extra fat. When I danced in dance class and felt alive and strong. What happened? I wondered.

"I just want to be healthy again," I said to myself.

I got up and made myself a bowl of cereal, so that my stomach would be full when I took the pill. I decided that if I get sick, I won't take it again. But it's at least worth a try. So far, so good. Then I sat down in front of the computer, eating my Kix, and that's when I came across my friend's words. I thought how bizarre it is that we're experiencing similar emotions even though our actual experiences are so far apart.

As I read about her recent surgery, I felt thankful not to be in her shoes. And thinking that made me feel somewhat guilty. I thought about how she'd probably love to only worry about a cold and some back pain. I thought about how I have no idea what she's going through, how so many of us don't. And that sucks for her, because how can anyone who hasn't been there relate? If it's lonely, tiresome, and awkward to feel sick at the level that I do, how much worse must those feelings be when it's cancer that's fucking with you?

And then I thought of something else my friend has said before: "There are far worse things in this world than cancer." And I pondered that for bit. I wonder why we do that? Why do we downplay our own experiences just because someone else is experiencing something worse? Is the fact that I've been in some form of pain for the last year any less important because my friend has cancer? Is her cancer any less important because there are people out there experiencing something even worse?

Everyone's experience is valid, at least to them. At least, it should be, shouldn't it? How sad to think that any of us might ever say, "My suffering doesn't count because it's not the worst kind of suffering."

I don't know about others, but I've certainly felt that way before. It's difficult for me to think that my back pain matters much in a world of six billion people. And maybe it matters to no one but me, but it really should matter to me. This is my body we're talking about, the only one I've got. And I would really like it to be comfortable -- to feel great, in fact. I make efforts to make my house a nice place to live. Why shouldn't I do the same with my body?

I think there's got to be some sort of middle ground in between 1) being so absorbed in my problems that I think they're all that matter, and 2) being so aware of other people's pain that mine seems insignificant in comparison. Either extreme seems unhealthy, and that's the last thing I want. Because it really is true what I said this morning... I just want to be healthy again.