Another Example of Finding Good in a Bad Situation

By Dave Balch Blogger

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Here is my latest in a series of wonderful examples of a good attitude in the face of a terrible situation. Chris, my wife, took the dogs for a walk the other day.

Ordinarily this wouldn’t be much of a news item except that she is suffering the side effects of the whole brain radiation that she needed six years ago for metastatic breast cancer.

It has left her extremely weak, especially on her left side, and her balance isn’t good either, a combination that makes walking a challenge.

She was about 100 feet from the front door when she fell, and was then too weak to get up. I was at a conference about 100 miles from home, and there are no neighbors to speak of because we live in an isolated area of the mountains in Southern California.

What to do?

She started crawling on her hands and knees to the front door. When she finally got there, it was locked.

Her hands and knees were sore and bloody so she scooted backwards on her bottom to the garage where she was able to get up using a grab bar that I had installed some time ago. Total elapsed time since the fall -- four hours.

That isn’t an error ... FOUR HOURS.

As she told me this story I was feeling pretty bad about the whole thing, but when she told me it was four hours I almost fell off my chair.

We have a medical alert system and she actually had the button with her, which would have caused the control center to call a couple of people and then the paramedics.

She didn’t use it because she got confused and thought that they would call the paramedics first when, in fact, they call the paramedics last. She didn’t want to have to go to the hospital and go through all that that would entail.

When we finished talking about it she seemed a little embarrassed by the whole thing. But she brightened up right away and said, “Look, I didn’t break or chip any of my nails!”

There is almost always something good or humorous in even the worst of situations.

Your challenge is to find it. Just the process of looking for it will be rewarding.

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Edited by Jody Smith

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We value and respect our HERWriters' experiences, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice, although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.