Why I'm Not Upset By Season 18 - by Annie D

Administrator's Note: Season 18 of Dancing With the Stars has been a strange season for sure, and the absence of Tristan has been particularly noticeable. Lots of us decided to skip the season; some of us decided to focus on other things, and others just didn’t feel the attraction for the show with a Tristan-less season looming.  Others decided to watch – some liked it, some hated it, some were ambivalent.  This special post is from a website member, Annie D, who tells us her special reasons for continuing to watch DWTS and why none of it bothers her in the least.

MacManiacs.org is addictive……..I keep on reading about S18 even though I said I wouldn’t.  I can’t help it even if I don’t necessarily agree with the opinions of some who post about it. The site is so good that it is one of the very few I bother to look at. That being said, let me explain why I can’t get bent out of shape about a TV show.  This is what I have been dealing with for the past few weeks.

1)  My Dad is 95 years old and although he is doing fairly well he misses my Mom so much.  She passed away 18 months ago and they had been together for almost 70 years.  He lives a mile from us so we see him as often as possible.  My only sibling lives 10 hours away so she isn’t here that often.  I see my Dad starting to fail (as I saw it happen to Mom). It’s a constant worry.

2)  My older daughter is expecting a baby in September.  She and her husband found recently that it is a girl and they were ecstatic.  The very next day she got a phone call that one of the ultrasound images was a concern.  She had to wait 48 hours to have the ultrasound redone.  I’m sure you can understand that we went to hell and back before they got the results.  They went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in 24 hours.  In the end, the second scan showed that everything was fine.  We are all so grateful but we were all in shock for a few days.

3)  My younger daughter had a very serious cardiac condition as a baby but ultimately we were told that although there was some damage to her heart it was minor and shouldn’t cause her any problems.  She had been followed by a cardiologist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children from 10 months to 18 years old. A couple of days before Mother’s Day she started feeling unwell and having chest pains (she is now 24 years old).  She went to the doctor who was very concerned given her history.  She was advised to go to the hospital to have some cardiac-specific tests done to rule out that she was having heart problems again.  So this is how I spent Mother’s Day.  I sat with her in the hospital waiting for these test results (tests that the ER doctor agreed were necessary).  I sat there thinking, “I am here waiting to find out if she has potentially suffered more cardiac damage."  Once again, someone was taking care of my children – everything was fine.  She had a condition called costochondritis which is not dangerous but can be very painful and can mimic the pain of (for example) a heart attack.

And that’s why I couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass about the stupidity and nonsense on a TV show.  I refuse to get upset about anything that has to do with entertainment because that’s all it is – entertainment.  I have so much else in my life to worry about.  DWTS is just fluff and no matter how ridiculous it is, I watch it and just enjoy the dancing.