Trust yourself and remember yes you can

Sometimes we haven’t enough confidence in ourselves, we don’t believe that we can do some easy or usual things. As we imagine the things are too difficult, and we think we will fail before we do it, so some easy things change to be difficult.

One of the most important messages we wish to convey in the book After the Analysis is "yes you can." While sickness strikes, you often come away from your doctor with a listing of "don’ts." A analysis appears to constrict all the choices; to paraphrase a lyricist, the life of the invalid "shrinks to the foot of the bed." But I think it’s probable to open up the space and reclaim several of what illness has taken away.

I recently saw a patient-I’ll call him Frank with polycystic kidney disease, PKD, a genetic condition that causes large cysts to develop on the kidneys. A risk-taker and sportsman before he got sick, Frank asked me if he could bungee jump or skydive, given the current state of his kidneys. I said, "Well, maybe bungee jumping is out"-the sudden pressure at the bottom of the fall might cause a cyst to explode-"but skydiving might work." I told him about another patient of mine with PKD, a hockey player, who had a special girdle made out of a football shoulder pad, which he wore to protect his abdomen when he was on the ice. Frank left the office not only with instructions to mind his diet and take his meds, but permission to take flight.

Many of my patients have found their way to new and surprising adventures after the diagnosis, even if we had to negotiate exactly what, when, and how. One young man on immunosuppressive drugs had planned a camping trip on the Nile with his wife; I had to tell him that, unfortunately, every bacteria known to man was also camping on the Nile. He said, Okay, and booked a trip to the Amazon–at which point I called his travel agent and made arrangements for him to go on a walking tour of Scotland. Another patient had to give up scuba diving after he developed kidney disease but found a new life of adventure scouting for buried treasure in the Southwest, armed with a divining rod. I myself have gone into the Mexican jungle to climb a Mayan ruin, and have stood on the Great Wall of China and the top of Mt. Etna, wearing my insulin pump.

You ought to speak with your doctor concerning the terms of your adventure-you may require a hockey belt, you may require to adjust your journey plans or discover an alternative escapade-but I think it’s probable to expand life beyond the foot of the bed.

We should trust in ourselves, and speak out that" yes, you can." Any difficult things would be easy if you remember that words. So we should believe in ourselves, we can have a more beautiful world if we all believe in ourselves.