Perspective is everywhere and a gateway to extreme gratitude if you care to look around. And I care to, every day, because there is always something bright and beautiful in the storm of sadness and overwhelm. Right when the sheltering in place happened, I heard an owner of a business, that I frequent, just got diagnosed with breast cancer. It has stayed with me, this perspective, and the many others I have viewed/read about since. It could always be worse - always. It could be dying alone in a hospital. Surrounded by others dying alone. Read this article if you are having a bad day.
I am blown away she has had so many years with stage 4 breast cancer. Thankfully, some people do. I love hearing her voice during this crisis. She is speaking for a community that has been drowned out by all the noise on either side of them. As people refuse to wear masks I wish they could pause and think about this mother and her children.
The fear you feel when you’re waiting to hear the results of a cancer scan is different from when you’re in physical danger. You have the same adrenaline overload but you can’t go into fight-or-flight. You can’t even freeze. You have to keep putting one foot after the other: out of the parking garage, into the lobby, into the elevator. You have to have a nurse check your vitals and you have to sit on the table with the white paper.
Heavy. Powerful perspective. I can’t imagine being on either side of that conversation, as a a patient (“am I going to die?”) or doctor (“you are[n’t] going to die.”)
Today is a good day for gratitude. I’m glad Caitlin Flanagan didn’t die a decade ago - she’s written so much great stuff in the meantime!
Perspective is everywhere and a gateway to extreme gratitude if you care to look around. And I care to, every day, because there is always something bright and beautiful in the storm of sadness and overwhelm. Right when the sheltering in place happened, I heard an owner of a business, that I frequent, just got diagnosed with breast cancer. It has stayed with me, this perspective, and the many others I have viewed/read about since. It could always be worse - always. It could be dying alone in a hospital. Surrounded by others dying alone. Read this article if you are having a bad day.
❤️
What an amazing story. So powerful and inspiring.
I am blown away she has had so many years with stage 4 breast cancer. Thankfully, some people do. I love hearing her voice during this crisis. She is speaking for a community that has been drowned out by all the noise on either side of them. As people refuse to wear masks I wish they could pause and think about this mother and her children.
Heavy. Powerful perspective. I can’t imagine being on either side of that conversation, as a a patient (“am I going to die?”) or doctor (“you are[n’t] going to die.”)
Today is a good day for gratitude. I’m glad Caitlin Flanagan didn’t die a decade ago - she’s written so much great stuff in the meantime!