Resilience, optimism and positive look on life

It has been a while since I my last blog. As you know I hurt my bad leg pretty badly during the Austin Challenge. Once I got home I saw my own doctor and it became obviously that the damage to my knee was healing well but the ankle needed surgery. When it became clear that surgery didn’t do the trick ( I couldn’t put my foot down straight) another one was scheduled and the position of the foot was corrected by “rerouting” the muscle.

A few check-ups later the pain hadn’t really gone down and my doctor started to fear it never might. It was a known side-effect that hardly ever occurs ( both of us should have know this would be the case for me).

I wasn’t too happy about that but starting November 2nd I finally got rid of the emergency anti-rejection medication that put all 30 kg that I lost back on and I was allowed to start a very careful designed training schedule again. I was allowed to get back on the bike and start preparations for this years Challenge, a great feeling.

Just before Christmas LiveSTRONG did me the tremendous honor of making me a Team LiveSTRONG mentor for all foreign participants, something that made me very happy and even more motivated to be able to ride a decent Challenge this year.

But as time progressed it became more and more clear that the additional pain the ankle generated was there to stay. When I found out I kind of felt sorry for myself: why on earth do these things keep happening to me? Teaching LiveSTRONG spinning class for survivors was as always a humbling experience and I never lost track of the fact that the 28 million had much more reason to complain. But I was also surrounded by lots of other people who’s life seemed to have no problems at all and my dear and wise friend Jody always tells me my struggle is just as real, only different.

Then came last Friday and I was visited by a friend who’s life hit a rough spot an couple of months ago. Although it wasn’t touched by disease, it sure wasn’t fun.

As we sat down and started talking my friend showed his usual resilience, optimism and positive look on life, despite what was going on. As the conversation went on I learned his life had been so much rougher than I ever imagined and still there was my optimistic, positive friend showing so much resilience it left me in awe. Right there and then I (figuratively) kicked myself and decided no more feeling sorry for myself. Too bad “hardly ever occurring side-effects” always happen to me, to bad I gained the weight (I’ll loose it again), too bad I didn’t get to ride the distance I wanted to at the Challenge (I will make up for it this year) and too bad the pain got a bit worse. Whenever things get rough again I will think about my friend, giving me yet another example how people, even outside my LiveSTRONG family, do LiveSTRONG!