Open almost any book on cancer patients, surviving cancer, or treating cancer and you'll find a section on attitude being a key player to living with and/or through cancer.  A big component of a positive attitude for me is living today for today (and letting any future problems stay just where they are: in the future).  I also visualize dire things happening to cancer cells and hope to be the one person out of many who makes it through the other side of stage IV colon cancer.  I call that "dwelling in hope."

It's pretty amazing the amount of push-back that I get on hopefulness as a cancer patient.  The media supplies photos of Patrick Swayze and Farrah Fawcett with dire predictions about their "sell by" date.  Movies provide tropes of saintly sufferers or not-so-saintly cancer patients racked with pain.  And individuals who've experienced the loss of one or more loved ones due to cancer, or who've had other traumas in their lives...well, it's tough at best for them to join me in hoping to be a miracle.

Which leads to today's quote and question.  Albert Einstein said, "There are two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle."

Now that's dwelling in hope.  Today's question?  What is the nature of hope as you see it?

 


Comments

Carolyn Passeneau

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:34:43

Hi Laura,

We haven't met. I do know your terrific Mom, though. Thought I'd share a miracle with you now that I can. My grand-nephew, Hoyt Stout, is on his way to a complete recovery. Most of his young life has been lived in a hospital in St. Louis, so it's pretty special for his folks to have him home, playing and having playmates (my grand-daughter, Ainsleigh for one). He's a link about his struggle, only if you want to know more:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/hoytstout

You and your family remain in my heart and prayers. Carolyn

 



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