Keeping it Fun

I spent most of yesterday in the garden.  Interspersed with sessions of going inside to regain my breathing, I managed to enjoy planting new roses and border flowers.  Today my arms look like I was attacked by a mountain lion, due to the thorns, but it's all worth it.  I have always noted that for some reason, when my garden is doing well, my life is doing well.  That's a sure sign that I need to keep the weeds out and the color in.

With that same attitude in mind, I want to go back to Scott Hamilton.  I love reading about other cancer patients and survivors who have a similar approach to happiness.  You will remember Scott as the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in figure skating.  Soon after that, he was the brainchild of "Stars on Ice."  He now lives in Nashville with his wife and two sons.

I quoted Scott earlier with his humorous remark after fighting testicular cancer,

"With what I've endured, if I can be happy, anyone can. I'm a short, bald, half-neutered, chemo-d, radiated, male figure skater.  What choice do I have but to be optimistic?"

His approach to life is so inspiring to me, " . . . stay positive, keep it fun and friendly, and have the quality of life that you deserve.  I learned that you can choose how you feel on a particular day, and if you just turn something slightly -- like you might turn a piece of glass and get a rainbow -- you change your perspective."

As a young child, Scott developed a mysterious illness that caused him to stop growing, but he continued to take skating lessons and play hockey.  At age 17, financial pressures forced him to quit competitive skating until an anonymous couple sponsored him for the 1980 Olympics.

He has had his share of difficulties, but he says, "If life was fair, it wouldn't be interesting . . . Challenge me, tell me something is horrible, and I'll find good in it.  Tell me something is going to defeat me and I'll find a way to beat it."  He believes we all have three choices: "succumb, adapt, or evolve."  We can give up, just deal with it, or take it and become better for it.  "I'm going to be a much richer, better, more in-touch person than I've ever dreamed because of this."

Ever dreamed.  I love that.

Scott established The Scott Cares Initiative with the Cleveland Clinic, where he was treated for his cancer in 1997, and together they have raised over $10 million for cancer research.  What a guy.  What an inspiration.  To Scott I toast my chemo cocktail.