Choosing Hope Over Fear

The full quote from Obama's inaugural speech is "On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." While he may have been talking about national political choices, the idea of choosing of hope over fear is also one I can realate to in a very personal manner.

I can't control much of what's going on with Shawn's illness. As we go from test to test which reveal little and symptom to symptom which get progressively scarier, some days it seems that fear is all there is. 

But we can choose hope over fear. I know that we have a great many doctors that are working hard to find both a diagnosis and treatment; and we're adding more doctors to that group every day. With all those great minds involved, I can choose to hope rather than be paralyzed by fear.

Last week, Shawn was supposed to come back home and have a new CT scan performed at the University of Chicago. Unfortunately, his plane was first delayed and then cancelled.  He ended up going back to Bloomington and he rescheduled the scan for next week. So next week he'll be in town from Tuesday-Friday and in that time he'll have the CT scan, an appointment with the new endocrinologist, and an appointment with his neurologist.

I'm choosing to look towards next week with hope instead of fear. And I'm sure I'll be reminding myself of that many times between now and then.