I'm going to tell a story. Just a short story about someone I know a lot, and that I'm going to call Philip. When this guy was 25, he was living abroad in Europe. While there, he used to spend many nights curling him self in the bed, trying to mitigate a tremendous pain he felt in his back and legs. He associated the pain to the change of life habits. Eating different food and earlier than usual. Trying different exercise routines, like being hit by several nationalities while playing basketball in a very cosmopolitan court, every week day. In any case, occasionally, even curling him self wouldn't allow for him to be able to sleep during a full night.

After he returned to Argentina, he changed back to his old life style. He had the same feeding habits and schedule he had prior to the stay in Europe. He maintained the same physical routine as before, with 50 hours a week seated in front of a computer, plus being hit by Argentinian-only basketball players twice a week.

As the pain not only never ceased but started to be, every time, stronger, he decided to see the doctors. They made him undergo some X-Ray studies and as they found nothing wrong with the X-rays they advised him to start swimming. As he nearly drowned to death more than a couple of times in Europe, for not knowing how to swim (but that's another story), he happily accepted the recommendation.

Swimming seemed to help for a while as the pain relieved for a couple of months. But after six months the pain returned with the same intensity it had in the moment it started to ameliorate. So Philip decided to go to the doctor again. He was derived to a traumatologist that ordered some MRI studies, because they suspected of spinal disc herniation. After a week the results were ready and the doctor told him that he needed to see a neurosurgeon, for information about the tumor that had grown in his spinal cord. In favor of the doctor I should say that he tried to be as less dramatic as possible but with little success, as per Philip's comments.

For someone who exercised a lot, never smoked, nor drank, nor ate too much getting this news was kind of unexpected and generated a revolution within his life and the lives of others near him, like the woman he loved and his family and friends. Philip was never depressed but the circumstances were hard for him, and sometimes it was difficult to comfort people, when he himself wasn't sure about the outcome of the situation, or how long it would take to develop.

That's why he looked for a doctor to advise him concerning some actions to take. He didn't find specialized neurosurgeons very fast, so he went to traumatologists first. The first professional told him that the situation was too risky. That accessing the tumor was dangerous, and without the operation the tumor would grow until completely severing his spinal cord. He didn't give Philip a time frame for this, and without two studies at different times it was difficult to calculate, but he mentioned something about the tumor reaching deadly sizes in a year or two.

Then Philip told me that he commented this to the woman he loved while lying on the roof of their house. Watching a sunset. And that it was funny how big the effort they were both making for being strong for each other was, even though the problem was kind of overcoming them. They decided to keep moving and he looked for a second opinion.

The next doctor agreed with the first one. But the high risk he expected after the surgery was just the loss of sensation and movement from his waist down. This guy, Philip, was faced with the chance of continuing his life, but with no more basketball, no more running, no more gym, no more walking... He could still read, write and listen to cool music though. And I'm not saying this is an easy scenario to accept, but I just transcribe Philip perceptions as he related them to me.

There was a third doctor, at last a neurosurgeon, who stated that due to the placement of the tumor (it was located on the right side of the interspinal space), there were chances of dissecting (removing) it, and with the sole loss of movement and perception of the right leg. I can't vividly express how happy Philip was. He trusted the doctor and considered his life after the surgery. He could not play basketball, nor run. But some crutches or cane assisted walks, were back in his future life picture. It's important to notice he had become a big House M.D. TV show fan that year.

Still, he looked for a second neurosurgeon's opinion. He found one of the nicest and more skilled professionals in Argentina (and maybe the world). He told Philip, that he wanted to perform the surgery himself and that, as per the tumor's location, the only risk was the loss of sensation in a small or big part of the right leg. This was only a guess, but based on the doctor's experience (hundreds of spinal cord and brain surgeries) Philip was really confident.

He had to travel to the US, for business, so he asked if that was likely. The doctor said yes, but that he would have to undergo surgery the moment he arrived to Argentina (otherwise the tumor would grow too much), and prescribed some pain killers that Philip never bought, as he usually did with any doctor's prescription.

After the travel, this doctor operated on Philip and removed the tumor. Some complications arose and nerves had to be cut. Unfortunately, unlike expected by the doctors, they were motor nerves. Besides the excruciating pain in the post surgery and the magical morphine relief, Philip had to undergo months of therapy to walk without a cane again, a couple of months later. He was able to run after a year. And he could play basketball again, a couple of years after the surgery. With physiotherapy and medication, the nerves can be re trained, but it takes time and discipline.

I'm telling this story, because it taught me some stuff. It taught me that there are no excuses to give up. Even when in the face of a great problem, there are always chances to change the perspectives and to alter circumstances that define our trouble. Plus, when everything goes worse than expected, when the conflict is not what we think or know we have ahead, but something really present and real, there's no room for giving up either. We have to embrace that certainty, we have to learn that "knowledge is power" and even knowing something bad that we're currently facing provides us with a background to fight or mitigate it.

Borges wrote in "The secret Miracle" (1) the story of a man, Jaromir Hladík, that asks God for a year of time to complete a play. This request is granted, but after the year and the conclusion of the play he will die. The short story is awesome and I don't want to tell it here, but I learned something from it too. I learned that we're all Jaromir Hladík, we're all granted a fixed amount of time, after which we will die. We are to choose what to do with it. We can complain about how hard life is or fight the fight. We can surrender or change the variables. And if nothing else is possible, accept the facts, as Jaromir did at the end of the story.

I may or may not be Philip, we may or may not be Jaromir, as Ulysses might or might not have been 'Nobody' (2). But as soon as we know who we are, where we are and what we want, situations as the ones detailed above will always be overcome.

Sources:

(1) The secret miracle, Spanish version. The secret miracle, English Wikipedia article.
(2) Odyssey, English Wikipedia article. The immortal, English Wikipedia article.