I was reminded, recently, that events are just events and that it isn’t until later (sometimes much later) that we can truly label them as either good or bad.
An example:
Quite a few years ago I thought I was suffering from a really nasty sinus infection. I was waking up nauseous, I threw up, and I had this massive pressure build up in my forehead. I was getting ready to go to the hospital when I passed out behind the wheel of my truck, luckily still in “park”. When I came to I was being loaded into an ambulance. I protested and the next thing I remember was coming to in the ER. They took an MRI and found a “mass” in my head. The next thing I know I am waking up in the ICU ward, I have 2 tubes sticking out of my head and I am feeling pretty good.
Sometime later, my doctor visits me and tells me that I have a fibroid cyst (not cancerous) in my head at the top of my spine and that it is preventing the fluid from exiting my head, thus the pressure buildup, and that the tubes inserted into my head are relieving that pressure, as long as I stay level with the bags of light pink fluid the tubes are going into.
My thoughts are:
I didn’t know that brain fluid was light pink and I think it’s funny that the ICU is using a level as a medical instrument. Well KISS.
Around this time my wife is emailing everyone we know to tell them what has happened and as a few friends are discussing my symptoms, one realizes that she is having the same symptoms. She goes to her doctor and discovers that she has a mass in her head too, unfortunately it is cancerous and she ends up losing a large peach sized scoop of her brains (her description).
So why do I mention this? If I look only at my issue I could lament how bad the situation was and I could whine about, “Why Me?”. If I look at the bigger picture I can draw a connection to my friend discovering her head issue because of me discovering mine. She would have eventually discovered that she had brain cancer but it would have probably been too late.
If you ask me why I had to go through my experience? So my friend could discover her cancer and still be alive today.
My experience also taught me a few things; the most important of which is that I have an amazing wife and that I am not ready to check out, yet.
So, events are just events and whether they are “good “or “bad” depends on one’s outlook on life. How we react to and what we do with the experience is what matters.
--Christopher M Neumann