Which Piece Do you Prefer?

As a growing society, life takes us in many strange directions. We often forget to stop and realize that we are better off than what we think. In my younger days I too took every life benefit for granted. I would wake up in the morning, open my eyes, stretch, and then jump out of bed and smell the fresh smell of bacon and toast laid out on the kitchen table.  Throughout my life I enjoyed the little things in life but never appreciated them, as many do, and had huge dreams of becoming a rock star or hockey player for the Montreal Canadians. Like most dreams kids have, reality kicked in and I soon realized that my skills in those traits don’t exist. As a teenager my focus was on everything except school. Through my eyes school was only a liability and my lackadaisical work efforts sent me straight to the work place instead of going to college.

At the age of nineteen my life turned upside down. This was one of the scariest moments of my life. I can only remember glimpses of that horrific day but all I can remember was working at Canadian Tire, my shift was almost complete and I volunteered to help stock some merchandise with my fellow co-worker. Suddenly I became dizzy, disoriented, and lost my speech- I passed out. When I woke paramedics were staring in my face- I just had my first seizure. I soon found out that I had been diagnosed with an AVM ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001783/) in the left side of my brain. I went through a hefty process of doctor appointments to figure the best method to cure this malformation. We determined that radiation would be the most effective, efficient, and safest procedure to take- I had radiation treatment months later. I was on the verge of recovery (at least what I thought). In December I finally smartened up and started to upgrade my Math and English skills. I quit work and pursued my education.  A year after I soon enrolled in two courses, math grade 10 and English grade 12. I was finally back on the road until disaster struck again. A month left into my studies I became very sick and had to drop out due to another seizure. In the span of four months my brain had swollen, had multiple seizures, my immune system failed and I lost the functions of my right side of my body including speech I mean my entire speech- have you seen the movie ‘the king’s speech”? I was in pretty bad shape.  A few months later the swelling started to decrease and yet again I was recovering. Later on my enrolled into a correspondent program and finished up my upgrading.

From my experiences of life it changed my perspective on what’s important and what’s irrelevant. I have not only witnessed the good but also the bad. I have seen patients at the hospital with “real” issues such as not being able to breathe without support or not fully understanding who or where they are. Life has many benefits and values starting from tying your shoes or communicating with friends. It’s when we really start to appreciate the little things in life in which we really feel blessed. I ask what piece of the pie would you prefer?