The Vulnerability.

Getting a terminal diagnosis is like losing the floor beneath your feet. You need to quickly find something to stand on. Some of that is spiritual (more on that later) but eventually, a lot of it for me was information.

What I hoped for -- with no idea of how I'd do it -- was a way to buy time; something that would be diminishing pretty quickly.

Even in the initial meeting when I was given the prognosis, while part of me was shocked, another part of me -- that inner voice -- said, "Screw you Doc. You don't know me.

NOW

As I look back..... my reaction, my shaky belief in myself was huge in giving me footing for my eventual view of my situation as a CHALLENGE. But right then, I didn't have anything to go on; no tools or information to create a road away from death's door. The revelation of that path was still a couple of days away -- and came as a total surprise.