Hey everyone, here I am, been away for a long time and back to talk about a great topic.
Miracles.
You know miracles happen every day. I’ll bet that if you were out walking around your community, workplace or school this week you came across someone who is connected to a miracle.
The word Cancer that I talk/write about is a tough word for a lot of people. Cancer, that word isn’t one that a lot of people like to talk or think about. So many people who have come in direct contact with Cancer have had experiences resulting in the death of a loved one. And I do have some experience with that result. It sucks, it’s not what we would choose, and while I still do believe everything happens for the right reason, when we loose someone who we love it sucks.
I’m sure that most of you connected to this email group have had contact with Cancer. Many people, I know, have had experiences resulting in a death, and that has a tendency to heighten your fear and also your belief that this thing called Cancer takes people away. And Cancer does take people away, a lot, too frequently for my liking, even though I know everything happens for the right reason.
But what I am reminded of every now and then is the fact that those of us who are still here represent the possibility of tomorrow for those Patients, and families of Patients, who are now where we once were. Those who are walking the steps that I have walked can and do often take comfort from the fact that I’m still here. I am here, lots of us are still here. Some of us have had the diagnosis of Cancer and really had excellent chances of surviving and thriving, while others have had experiences that don’t make much room for that surviving and thriving.
I can tell you that I fit nice and comfortably into that latter category, but the nice part about the medical words “prognosis” and “diagnosis” is that they use past and present medical information to make some prediction of the future. And while I’ve seen some pretty convincing fortune tellers in my day, I’ve never met one who’s always been right every time.
When we hear percentages, which I’ve heard lots of, they can provide a nice distraction. For me when I hear percentages I most often focus on the “bad” part anyway, and then I say to myself “ok, the Docs tell me I’ve got a 40% chance to be here in 5 years, I can tackle that.” But the reality is that the “40%” number, or any number a Doc ever gives a Patient, is created from experiences that have happened, past tense, and while it may be some reliable predictor of the future it absolutely isn’t something I’d bet the mortgage on.
For those of you connected to a Cancer Challenge right now if I would have one thing I’d want you to know it would be near the same thing I’d say to anyone. Focus on today, listen to what others are telling you, but don’t dwell or follow their words without conscience, listen to your gut, know that miracles happen every day, they are walking around you all the time.
Do you think the people in line with me at the super-market last night had any idea that they were next to a miracle?
Some assembly of knowledge suggests that I have a 40% chance to be here and healthy in 5 years. I’m working to get there, but I want to stress that it’s today that’s most important to me. Today, and what I did with it. If I get tomorrow then I’ll try to make that another great day in my collection. And if I get 5 more days or 5 more years of tomorrows you won’t find a Patient who enjoyed his miracle more.
They happen, every day, to regular, extraordinary people. Believe me I have stats to back it up!
Always…
Live life. Love life.
Geoff
