Guest guest Posted October 28, 2005 Report Share Posted October 28, 2005 So much truth to this. Really touched my soul!!!!! Thanks for finding this!!! Ingrid > > I'll post this on the ccsupportstories board but thought you'd all like to > read this. > > It really puts disease in perspective. In this case it is chronic Crohn's > disease but the feelings > are similar. > > > From: " altman23 " <altman23@> > Date: Sat Aug 3, 2002 1:03 am > Subject: A Beautiful Read altman23 > Offline > Send Email > > > http://www.cmbm.org/conferences/ccc2001/Transcripts/Remen.htm > > > Life is full of mystery. There are many things that we cannot > understand, but we can witness and even know in ourselves. In truth, > we all know many things that we cannot measure. And over the years, I > have found in a lot of circumstances, knowing something may be much > more important than understanding it or being able to measure it. > > I've been a physician for 38 years, and I've taught on the faculty of > three major medical schools. I'm trained as a researcher. And for the > last 30 years, I've cared for people with cancer and listened to > their stories. And on the basis of all this experience in medicine, I > would really want to say that it's possible to research and study and > measure life for many years without knowing life at all. You know, > some of the important things about life cannot be learned through > analysis. It can be only learned by experiencing life whole. And so > it may be important for us all to consider the possibility that > science may have defined life too small, because when we define life > too small, we define our work too small, and we define ourselves too > small as well. And I have actually come to think that life might best > be defined, not by science, but by mystery. > > I want to start with a story here about the first time that I noticed > the will to live. And it was something that changed my life, so I > remember exactly where I was at the time. I was 14 years old, and I > was walking up Fifth Avenue between 34th Street and 35th Street on a > Saturday morning with two of my friends, and we were doing what young > teenagers did on Saturday morning in the '50s: We were shopping. > > And as we walked up the street, a little flash of green caught my > eye. And there, growing right through the New York City sidewalk were > two tiny green blades of grass. Now, they weren't growing through a > crack in the sidewalk. They were growing right through the cement. > And this, of course, stopped us all cold. Now we were very > sophisticated young people. We were 14 years old, but of course, we > were New Yorkers. So we knew quite a bit about power. But none of us > had ever encountered this kind of power before. > > And I remembered it for years, the image of the two little tender > blades of grass coming right through the cement. I remembered -- even > before I had a glimmer of its personal significance and meaning for > me, because at the time I saw it, it struck me as a kind of a miracle. > > Now, about a year later, when I was 15 years old and I was diagnosed > with Crohn's disease, the disease that I've lived with for all of my > life, a group of experts in white coats gathered around me and my > family, and they told us the facts. No one knew what caused this > disease. No one had any idea how to cure it. I would have multiple > surgeries and I would die by the time I was 40. > > Now, at 15, this was not my dream of the future. I had something else > in mind. So it was a time of great darkness and despair. And I come > from a very medical family: In two generations of my family, there > are nine physicians and three nurses. And so we never questioned what > the experts had told us, and I made many life decisions based on this > information, decisions about marriage and children. It didn't seem > right to me to start something that I knew that I was not going to be > able to finish. It would be years before I would make the connection > between the two little blades of grass that I had seen the year > before and myself. > > Thinking back on this, if only one of the many physicians around me > had suggested that it might be possible for me to find something in > me that could break through this obstacle of this disease, something > that medicine could not measure, even understand, that perhaps I > could strengthen this in myself. It would have made a great > difference to me. But no one did. And now that I've been a physician > myself all these years, I think I understand why. > > My doctors didn't tell me because they simply didn't know. You do not > find will to live under W in Essentials of Internal Medicine. This is > not something you learn from a medical textbook. This is something > you learn only by being open to observing life itself. > > You know, why allow mystery in life? In the presence of mystery, life > becomes more filled with possibility, more inspiring actually, > somehow larger. And in allowing a larger and more mysterious > definition of life than science may offer us, we may discover one of > mystery's greatest gifts, which happens to be hope. Now, you know, > it's really sad, because the facts in my situation have never > changed. There is still no known cause for Crohn's disease and still > no definitive cure. I live with this problem daily. I've had eight > major abdominal surgeries. I no longer have most of my intestine. But > I have not been dead these past 23 years. (Laughter) > > So I suppose I'm here to remind you that what was in those two little > green blades of grass is in us all. You know, whenever there's a > difference between the facts and the stories, you're in the presence > of mystery. And life is often not limited by the facts. Life is > filled with mystery. The world is not made up of facts. The world is > made up of stories. And each of our stories is as unique as our > fingerprints. Each of us is a story that has never happened in the > history of the world before. You know, a diagnosis is a confrontation > with the unknown, an encounter with mystery, and it would be good to > acknowledge the mystery in things just a little bit more -- as > friends, as family, as health professionals, certainly as physicians. > I think it's very important to be able to say that the diagnosis is > cancer or Crohn's disease or whatever, but I think we also need to > add that what that will mean remains to be seen, and then become a > part of someone's story as they live it out. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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