What fighting cancer has been teaching me (up to now…):
Be patient!
Bite Size Management thoughts by Dr. Constantine “Dino” Kiritsis, Founder, StudySmart, award winning curriculum development expert and author
After still fighting cancer for almost half a year now (since Sept. 2021), I have decided to publicize it through this short article to stress the importance of the word PATIENCE… it is a very important skill – if I can call it a skill… (By the way I did not intend to write anything in my condition, but I feel this is a bit more educational for all of us, thus useful…)
As Leo Tolstoy stated, “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” It seems that we were focusing too much on saving time but in the process, we may have lost our focus…
· It seems that we are all in a hurry for everything. At least I was…career, opportunities etc.
· It seems that we want everything “NOW”…
· It seems that we are impatient when ordering on-line. “When will my package be here”? How can I track it?
· It seems that we even can’t wait even fom an online food order…”why is it late”?
· It seems that we are changing jobs too fast – the average for young people is about a year – “ I haven’t found what I’m looking for”…
· It seems that we want to become rich quick (don’t get me wrong, some do and are lucky, but that’s not the norm)…
· It seems that we want a date in a moment by searching online and just swiping…
· It seems that we want things fast either because technology has enabled us either because we are changing our mentalities because of the technology advances…
I can go on and on with how impatient we have become… Don’t get me wrong, we can do things faster in this digital age, but it does not necessarily mean we are learning or enjoying anything – most probably – we may be getting frustrated, and we lose the actual sense of something in which really means something to you and that it’s worth waiting and fighting for. Just pause for a second, and imagine what if love, feelings, working hard for something was just happening like ‘that’… in a moment …. you may get the fabricated feeling that things always are materializing fast - which is not the case…
To get to my point though…this is about my cancer teaching me to be patient so let me make my point…
Fighting cancer is a hard battle…the odds are all against you based on facts so there are not too many things you can do apart from BEING PATIENT and listening to the experts. I had a couple of scares in almost passing away last year and I have to thank my doctors, wife and brother for being there for me. Thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, 3 liters of blood hemorrhage even falling from my bed in intensive care head down… I had to stop chemotherapy twice to deal with side effects and delay the radio therapy treatment…
So, I was always asking my doctors about the next steps:
“How can we limit the thrombosis in the legs?
· Answer: be PATIENT. It takes time as we may affect blood hemorrhage if we continue the shots you need…
“How can we do radio therapy along side chemotherapy to go faster with the treatment?
· Answer: be PATIENT. It takes time as the toxicity will be too much in your system…
“How can we lose the catheter (I have one on for 5 months)”
· Answer: be PATIENT. Given thrombosis, you can’t walk yet so the catheter is actually helping you avoid stressing your legs…
“Dino, be patient – these things take time and you need to understand this to fight the battle. It’s a long one and you need to be PATIENT”.
I guess as Mahatma Gandhi said, "To lose patience is to lose the battle.”
Central theme to whoever is reading this, let’s try to relax a bit, sit back, reassess a few things about where we are going with our families, careers, what we want and understand that we need to be patient in the difficult cases especially that end up making us better people, better analysts of current situations and make us take time to comprehend and appreciate things that REALLY matter.
I am now listening to my doctors as experts a lot more as I have realized that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.” (Rose)
Finally, a quote from George Bernard Shaw: "Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything." Well, I actually may have nothing in the future. I have thought of dying from day 1 because of this ordeal so I am trying to be as patient as possible and positive about the outcome…
Be patient (and go do a check up!)
Dino – hope I live through this to write more on some insights – keep an eye out for me