My old boss called me quite upset last night. She had watched The Oprah Winfrey Show today and wanted to talk with me about what she saw.

Normally, Oprah is not a show she follows. However, that morning she had seen a promo highlighting Montel Williams. P knew he had MS, so she taped the show.

She called to tell me that she thought I was tremendously brave for getting up in the mornings, knowing what I would face throughout the day. She called to tell me that she had not been a good friend to me.

Oprah is rebroadcast at 1:00 AM, so I taped the show and gathered up the nerve to watch it. I am not quite sure if that was a good decision.

He talked about pain quite a bit, far better than I have in any of my gazillion posts about it. For example, I've described the pain in my feet when I get up in the morning as if I am standing on knives. He described the pain as being skewered in his feet with hot metal rods that are twisted as they are being shoved higher and higher up his legs. Different imagery, eh?

I felt as if I were not alone, listening to him. I felt even more lonely listening to him. He has a staunch support in his wife. She watches him, intervenes when he needs it. She sees him even when he is pretending for others. When he cries, he is not alone. When he hurts, he is not alone. When he is angry, he is not alone. When he is tired, he is not alone.

I had fellowship in how he talked about his pain and the cruel idiosyncratic nature of this disease, of often knowing more than the doctors he visits, of having to fight through each and every day. Yet my longing to not have to battle each and every day by myself was all the more bitter after listening to him.

I could wish that my friends and family would sit down and watch the show captured on my DVR, but I wonder if they would see what I need them to see or if what he was transparent enough to share would just be passed over as just another celebrity "survivor" story.