Good Afternoon Everyone,
I hope everyone is having a nice day so far. I have enjoyed a much better day than I have in the past week. My headaches aren't not nearly bad as they have been. It is hard to say if they are actually going away though, today I have relaxed a lot which keeps them at bay. In addition, my doctor gave me pain killers stronger than morphine, so when I do feel one I pop two of those bad boys and "see ya later headache" :)
Today I wanted to touch upon something that I have learned going through this journey; dealing with disappointment. There is someone in our network today who is having to navigate themselves through dealing with a disappointment so I thought it would be good to share my reflections on this subject.
To say that this journey I have been on has been filled with disappointments would be an understatement. The thing I have learnt is that disappointments come in all shapes and sizes. I have had big ones, like learning in February that I wouldn't be starting my new job at Maple Leaf as planned but rather would be taking a detour to fight cancer. To smaller ones like learning my leukemia was positive for the Philadelphia chromosome. This second disappointments really didn't change anything for me but it was still another blow that I had to deal with.
I think the toughest disappointments of all is when you have your mind focused on something and it doesn't happen. This happened to me near the end of my hospital stay. I was supposed to be getting discharged from the hospital the next day when they found the infection in my Hickman line and I had to stay an extra four days. This news was devastating mainly because I was so mentally prepared to leave I didn't prepare myself for a chance of disappointments.
Although going through this journey has had it fair share of disappointments, it has had a positive side as well; I have learnt to deal with them :) The first thing I should share is when things aren't going your way or you have a major disappointment you must keep positive and hoping for the best. The second thing to realize is things happen for a reason. If something that we were hoping to happen didn't, it means there is something else we are meant to do. This has been the approach I have taken to dealing with my cancer. Although it has changed my life drastically and destroyed "the plan" I had been building for 3 years, I truly believe that I will find a purpose and meaning for my new journey.
I was reflecting this morning on life's greatest disappointments. These are the ones that truly can be devastating to someone. What I realized is that these disappointments although terrible, can also be the source of something powerful; they can be the source of some of the most powerful inspirations we may know. These events are usually so devastating because we believed with all our hearts that everything would work out in our favour. When this doesn't happen, we should use this disappointment to our advantage and let it motivate us moving forward. When we can't do, we must influence.
So please if any of you suffer from a big disappointment in the future, take your time to grieve but then find the new purpose for your energy. Most of the time it means you are meant to influence others to act on your behalf. The beautiful thing is when you inspire and influence your impact is actually much greater than if you were to just act alone.
I hope you all enjoy your rainy Thursday.
GO TIGER :)
Aaron
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