"Hope is a waking dream" ~ Aristotle

I will be having major surgery at the end of this month. As such, I have to have blood work and doctor visits to verify that I am healthy enough to undergo said surgery. On Thursday I went to the lab for my blood draws and I met the most amazing woman. 

Our conversation started as they all do in my case, I share more information than strictly necessary and she shares in equal amounts. My phlebotomist, I will call her J, has had the same procedure I am having and we discuss how necessary it is and how great it will be once it's done. I mention that I do not want to remain in the hospital overnight on 23 hour obs. I will not need much and the thought of being in a hospital where there will be people who will really need their staff, I feel like I am an unnecessary burden that could be avoided.

J then shares with me that she feels very much the same way because while she has terminal brain cancer, she is still able to function fully.

Terminal brain cancer. I had to think about that. She appeared to be a fully functional and productive member of society. J was drawing my blood and holding a conversation with me. She then revealed that she had lived a full year past her original life expectancy and that during her year of very aggressive chemo she only missed 5 days of work. She stated that she could not leave her husband and children, she loved them too much to give in.

I was a nurse on an oncology unit for a year, I watched and worried for my patients as they underwent  treatments. I held them when the pain was too much, shaved their heads when more of their hair was out than in, I watched them take their last breaths and cried with their families after our last good-bye. 

J was all smiles and laughter. She made my day bright and left me with a spring in my step and the echo of the mantra "cancer sucks".  Not every person who discovered they have cancer perseveres with such success and grace. But J showed me that no matter how bad of a hand you are dealt, you get to play the cards the way you want to play them. Mind over matter can work, medical studies show test subjects who receive placebo report improvement too.

Hope is a waking dream, choosing to make your own path and make it successful is a maximized empowerment we are all born with. Find your inner power and use it to the best of your abilities.

Enjoy Maximized Empowerment everyone! And if you would, spare some warm thoughts for all the cancer survivors out there.