Embrolojoy

Here's an obscure thought.

If someone told you that you had x years/days/minutes to live. At what point would you start changing the way you live?

If someone told me I had 12 months to live. I probably would stop going to uni and start doing things I've always wanted to do. See the world, spend as much time with friends and family as possible etc.

But what if you had ten years to live? Ten years is a fair bit of time... Enough to finish my education and work for a bit. It perplexes me. Having a deadline changes things. Would I really want to do that though?

The thing is, we all have a clock hang over our heads. We just aren't able to read the time on it. So we live as though we will live forever, forgetting we all have a very finite amount of time on this earth. Certainly though, not dwelling on ones inevitable demise is a good thing. Or else we would never get anything worthwhile done. But it's an interesting thing to ponder.

I had the privilege of talking to a patient who had had and MI, dropped dead, was revived, triple bypassed, valve replaced, heart failured and then heart transplanted. Fascinating fellow! Very aware of the clock above his head, having had his reset on numerous occasions. He was a really insightful guy, and was just tearing off all these profound observations about making the most of life, and treasuring every minute. It's always nice to learn things from patients!

I guess I'm not really adding anything new to the dialogue, it has all been said before. We all have a terminal disease of some kind, but interesting to see how awareness can change people, change their values, and in the case of my patient, change their heart!