Stress & Health

It was just after Christmas 2003 when I got the news that my brother, at the age of 45 and eight years younger than I was, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had only months to live. He had a great marriage and three teenage sons. My brother and I were very close. Mom and Dad and my sister were devastated, and I was shocked.

In 2008, I was a young, happy lawyer, enjoying my family and with relatively few worries. Then, I suffered a seizure and was diagnosed with brain cancer. Suddenly, all my plans for the future were up in the air and I was really scared. I reached out for help from the Lawyers Assistance Program and am tremendously grateful for the support provided.

I find it strange, watching the ebb and flow of humanity around me, whether at home at work or at play. Change and not disorder is the natural order of things, and it takes many of us long years before we realize this; some of us never do. We plod through life, trying to impose order on our immediate world, and we call it organizing or scheduling when what we should really be doing is riding the wave of change.