Perhaps you are newly diagnosed and wondering what is in store for you. You are angry, sad, depressed and really really down. Don't avoid the sorrow and disappontment--look at it as squarely as you can, go though it to the other side--and there IS another side. You will be amazed by what your mind and heart are still capable off.

When I was newly diagnosed, this poem by David Whyte was a great comfort to me. It was given to me by my aunt and I had it hanging by my bed and in my office. I often read it when I felt tired, overwhelmed, or just exhausted. It speaks a great truth to me:

The Well of Grief

Those who will not slip beneath
  the still surface on the well of grief

Turning downward through its black water
  to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,
  the secret water; cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering
  the small round coins
    thrown by those who wished for something else. 

Courage, sadness, disappointment, it's all there. But the "glimmering coins" are there too: the wishes and dreams that others have tossed into the depths, like messages in a bottle. Hope, and when you can't hope, just hope a little, and when you can't hope even a little, then get a good friend to hope for you until you can.  And if you have no hope, and no one to hope for you, try to endure until help comes. Be well. 

Summer hobby...You should try it! I've flown trips of 200 miles and up to 18,000 feet without an engine! Amazing. And such flights are not remarkable by any means.

Unlike a glider, this big airplane (a 747) is more of a community effort to fly. But we still get advice and direction from the rubbery ducky! Oh great quacking oracle, speak to us...

Recent fotos from my Audi Ice Driving School given in the Tyrolean Alps in Jan2009:

And this is lined up and ready to do some work on the ice...