Perspective: noun, a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view.
the Oxford Dictionary
There are days when I wake up and my head is in a dark room thinking about things in the world that are not going well: climate change causing disastrous flooding, refugees stranded on freezing borders and the endless Pandemic. I get up and get going and my head comes out into the morning light . This happens even on the dreariest of days. Thursday this week I went down to Toronto, on the train, to get a routine check of my bone density done at the Toronto General Hospital. For some reason the subway was not working so I walked, from the train station, up to the hospital. Across the street there is a hospital I know well. My Sinai. It is the building on the left in this photo.
In the year 2000 I spent 10 days on the 14th floor recovering from a seven hour surgery for colorectal cancer. Now, 21 years later, I am still here and still very much alive. I was reworked and rewired and I have a permanent colostomy. I know there are people who blanch at this idea. I have had a couple of people tell me there was “no way” they would consent to having a colostomy and living with a bag. This is something I cannot understand. It is at most a minor inconvenience and it has not stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do.
“It’s a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.”
Germany Kent
So if you know someone who is facing colorectal cancer and is having difficulty accepting the “bag” outcome. Please tell them about me. Now when I walk past Mt. Sinai and look up to the 14th Floor I am filled with gratitude for my life. I walk on with a spring in my step and I give thanks. It is all a matter of perspective .
It is not what you look at that matters . It’s what you see.
Henry David Thoreau
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