Finding Motivation In Others' Challenges

My little sister, Carolyn, has Multiple Sclerosis. She's 41 years old and got the diagnosis 11 years ago when she was only 30. It's the remitting-relapsing kind. I'm sure it took her a while to come to terms with the diagnosis, but from the get-go, she has amazed our family with her courage, bravery, strength and positive friggin' attitude. She's a Tigger, and the way she has coped with her MS diagnosis has blown us Eeyores out of the water.

Carolyn's response to her diagnosis was to start training for and running marathons. She's completed 9 full marathons in the 11 years since hearing she has MS, and if all goes as planned, she'll complete her 10th marathon this coming March 21 in Los Angeles. (We're training for it together. I've run 3 marathons, all before my thyroid cancer diagnosis and treatment and only because I let Carolyn talk me into it.) Here's a picture of Carolyn and me after my most recent marathon in San Diego in 2007. Carolyn is on the left:



Since my thyroid cancer test results have come back not very awesome, I've been wondering how Carolyn got to a peaceful place with her MS. I asked her this last Saturday when we were running our 14-miler in training for the LA Marathon. (Long runs are the best time to receive great wisdom and have the heartiest laughs.)
She gave it to me straight and simple:
"1. It could be worse
2. I could die in a car crash tomorrow."

Yup. That's what she said. And you know what? It's helped me tremendously. Yes, I've thought "it could be worse" a zillion times since my diagnosis, and I've said it out loud many times, too, trying to remind myself not to feel sorry for myself. But that knowledge has not had a lasting effect on my perspective. I still feel sorry for myself occasionally, even though children are starving to death in Africa and Haitian babies have no parents to hold them. Whenever I think "it could be worse," I quickly switch into guilt mode, feeling like a self-centered jerk because I have the audacity to be sad over having a treatable cancer. But the way Carolyn said it, it finally hit home.

And yes, we could all die in car crashes tomorrow, and would I want to spend my final day on this planet worrying about a disease that will likely not kill me? No.

However, there is a place for planning and strategizing about how to deal with this disease. It's just a matter of keeping it in perspective...remembering that it's not a life-or-death matter (at least not now, anyway).

Watching my little sis go bravely about her life is one way I get enthusiasm to take my challenges head-on and with a positive outlook. I also find motivation to deal with this disease from others who have much worse prognoses than I do. Ric Blake on the advanced thyroid cancer listserv is eloquent and thoughtful and profound and has had to deal with a very challenging prognosis from the start.

Dana Jennings, a writer for the New York Times, has prostate cancer and writes beautifully about the ways in which a cancer diagnosis fundamentally shifts your perspective...and the perspectives of our families, friends, co-workers...

If you're looking, motivation to do better, to deal better, to be better, is everywhere. You just have to open your eyes to find it. And, of course, God is always there to remind you that you're not alone on your journey.