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18
Jun
2020
The follies of my youth have caught up with me. For a dozen years, I spent almost every sunny weekend out on the water, just bumming around in small boats. Sometimes up Howe Sound, sometimes up the North Arm, sometimes just in Coal Harbour.
But wherever it was, I got blasted two ways by ultra-violet rays -- from the sun overhead, and from the sun reflecting off the water.
It was a glorious time, I remember.
But now I’m paying the price. A dermatologist told me that I will need to have seven pre-cancerous patches on my face removed surgically.
“Ideally,” he said, “I’d like to see you living in the bottom of a coal mine.”
My instant reaction was, “I’d rather die!”
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: choices, skin cancer, ultraviolet rays
1
Nov
2017
I forgot to set my alarm when I went to bed on Wednesday night. I woke up Thursday morning, too late to go to my usual Rotary breakfast meeting.
I took the dog for her morning walk instead.
And on that walk, I met a neighbour who was just taking her dog Jessie for what she was afraid might be its last walk. In a few minutes, the two of them were going to visit a canine specialist, to get the verdict on something filling her dog’s lungs.
Her dog normally moves on an invisible trampoline, touching the ground just long enough to launch another sub-orbital trajectory. This time it walked. Slowly.
“I’m a nurse,” my neighbour said. “This sounds terminal to me.”
If I had gone to Rotary, I would have missed that encounter.
Some, I’m sure, would explain those coincidences as evidence of divine planning. God intended me to forget to set my alarm, so that I could be there at that moment, on that morning.
Tags: flow charts, choices, options