David Kessler tells the story of Sarah, a retired professor in her late 70s with terminal cancer, who refuses to surrender her hope. When her doctor says there's no hope, Sarah insists: my hope is mine. I plan to die with it.
There was a woman that I worked with who was in her late 70s, and she was retired, and she had been a college professor. She had three children, had a great marriage, and she found out that she had a tumor. She sat down with the doctor when he gave her the news, and he explained to her that they could surgically remove the tumor that was in her abdomen. However, it was surrounded by numerous smaller ones, and it was only a matter of time until the other ones grew. And her name was Sarah. And Sarah did the best she could to accept the fact that she was facing a terminal illness. So she did whatever she could to make peace with that. A friend of hers called her up one day, really excited and said, sarah, I just read in the newspaper about this new experimental treatment that shrinks tumors. Have you heard of it? Sarah said, no. She went out and got the paper. She was real excited. She called up her doctor, made an appointment to see him, and she sat down with her doctor and showed him the article. And the doctor said to her, sarah, you have got to face it. There is no more hope.
Now, let me tell you what Sarah said.
She had a bit of. She had something to share with us. She looked up at him and she said, my hope is mine. I've had it all my life. Sometimes it becomes reality. Sometimes it's just hope.
I plan to keep my hope. In fact, I plan to die with it. So we can evaluate this experimental treatment, but not my hope.
So that certainly was an early lesson for me, and.
The importance of maintaining hope.
