If you’re looking for something inspiring to read, check out today’s issue of The Good Weekend which features, amongst other things, an article on Dr Anna Donald, a childhood friend of mine currently battling cancer. And by battling, I mean she’s full of the stuff. She’s supposed to be dead already but against all odds, she’s not. Not that you’d actually be aware you were talking to a sick person if you spent an afternoon with her as I have been doing occasionally this year on my Fridays off. Visiting her is never depressing. She feeds me cake, we bitch about how much we both despised out high school and she chatters on excitedly about the fifty possible options she’s going to explore now that she can’t practise medicine any more, in particular, exotic computer graphics programs – should she be taking a 3-year course or a bunch of short courses instead? What do I think? All I can think, between mouthfuls of expensive David Jones food hall cake, is that were it me in her shoes, I would not be such an enjoyable person to visit.
Of her medical predicament, she has this to say:
“We are not what our current stories tell us we are. We are much, much bigger than that. And that makes life much more exciting, and death much less scary.”
She’s experimenting with a range of conventional and non-conventional medical treatments.
I cried when I first heard she was dying, even though back then I’d barely seen her in twenty years. Anna is probably the smartest person I know, a Rhodes scholar, Harvard scholarship recipient and successful business person. She got picked on in primary school for having red hair and being so much smarter than the rest of us. I was one of the bullies, a fact she has long since forgiven me for. Despite her prognosis, Anna is not entirely convinced she has to die before her time. Her years in medical practice have shown her that sometimes folks survive against all odds and nobody can really say why. She believes she might just be that one in a million and I believe her.
The journalist has done a good job with her story. Check it out.
2 Comments
That’s a great story. Added to that, the most recent issue of Men’s Health magazine has just been released featuring an extensive and beautifully written piece by Paul Haines about his own story. Go pick it up!
ooh, ta for the tip. I will.