Hospital stay with a happy ending

"You need a biopsy" is a scary announcement. "There is a slight complication" is scarier yet. Suddenly, there are gurneys, tubes, I.V.s, every-other-hour checks of vital signs, and endless waiting for doctors and diagnoses--all exhausting and uncomfortable.

I just spent two days in a very nice section of a very nice hospital. I started out in "special services" and ended up in a cross between an ER and a modified ICU. My room was OK, except that it lacked a bathroom. This was my first experience with an indoor port-a-potty and a sink as the only visible plumbing. After the initial discomfort of the tests and aftereffects, I spent a lot of time waiting and reading.

At the very last minute of the very last hour my doctor arrived and said the magic words: "It's not cancer; you can go home." As anticlimactic as the event was, I accepted it with gratitude and left as fast as I could gather my paperwork and hail a wheelchair. Despite the two long and miserable days, "exhausting and uncomfortable" were a welcome relief.

A Year of Learning Life's Lessons

This has been a year of "lessons"—some revelatory, some repetitions of those I had learned and forgotten. I heard myself say "aha" so many times it became a private joke. I can't remember a year when I was so conscious of what matters and what is a waste of the space it was taking up in my brain. Permit me to share a few of my epiphanies with you.

1. Don't let a little tear in the fabric of your family become a huge rip. Do whatever you can to mend it while you can.
2. They say you can choose your friends but not your family. Good friends are family—the family you create by choice.
3. Moods are energy, and energy is contagious. If you don't believe it, see what happens when you smile and say something pleasant to someone who is crabby or rude.
4. Feeling OK is not the same as being healthy. Health is a gift, but you can do a lot to make it the gift that keeps on giving. Don't take it granted; life can throw you a curve when you least expect it.
5. Work is not labor when you are enriched by doing it. It is not about money or what others expect of you. Doing what you love and loving what you do is like hitting the jackpot every day.