Imagine that you are feeling strong, healthy, and overall better than you have ever felt before. The symptoms you have been experiencing for years have been reduced significantly as the result of hard work and dedication to your health. Then one evening, as you are eating dinner with a loved one, the pain in your gut returns. You tell yourself it cant be too serious and decide to sleep it off. The morning comes and you have hardly slept because the pain is building, and by the time the afternoon arrives you are in so much pain that you decide to go to the hospital.

This is what I experienced a little over three weeks ago. Yet again, I ended up in the hospital. Something was different this time though. It all turned out to be a blessing in the most inconvenient of disguises. I was in pain, dehydrated, confused, vomiting. I knew the routine of checking into the emergency room well by this point. Keeping my focusing on my breathing and trying not lose my patience. Memories of past traumas began racing through my mind, the pressure building quickly, threatening to throw my breath off pace.

One memory in specific stands out above the others, that of the lead surgeon on the gastroenterology team in the hospital standing beside my bed as I woke up from a short nap (you don’t get much sleep in the hospital because someone different comes to check on you every hour or two ). He introduces himself and continues to tell me that they have reviewed the results of my CT scan, and it looks like i’m going to need surgery again because their is an obstruction in my bowel. At that moment, when I heard those words, it was as if I had been broken into thousands of pieces.

In the past, the mention of another potential surgery would immediately put me in a state of anxiety and then depression. This time things were different. I sat there in the waiting room, knowing I had a very important choice to make. Whether I was going to let this break me, or whether I would come out of this stronger, with an even more positive attitude. I would make every conscious effort to smile, be positive, and be happy. Rather than to worry, which is a prayer for an unwanted outcome.

The rest was routine. A barrage of questions about how you feel, what you are experiencing. Pain medication. 3-5 day stay. Nurses and doctors visiting you every couple of hours. Blood tests every day. Miserable hospital food. Still though, I wouldn’t let it get me down. The same surgeon came in, and yet again told me that he thinks I will need surgery for this. If that was the case, I thought, then so be it. I wont stress over this. Regardless of what happened, I would bounce back.I was blessed with a loving family, girlfriend, and friends. Turns out I didn’t need surgery. The results of some tests showed that I hardly had any inflammation, which was a sign that my diet was working and my Crohn’s wasn’t very active. What landed me in the hospital was scar tissue from my surgery two years ago, which had slightly narrowed a portion of my intestinal tract. I was overwhelmed with joy, all my hard work had been paying off. This was just another bump in the road. I could further tweak my diet to ensure this wouldn’t have to happen again. I pray thats the case, and if its not i’ll continue to roll with the punches.

Im only human. I still feel pain, anger, confusion. But a positive attitude allows me to channel those emotions into something better. I had read in the past of how it is in our nature to experience pain, but our suffering is a choice. I understood this concept intellectually, but it was only until this last hospital visit where I was able to know the concept experientially.

Enough is enough, its not worth letting my days pass in a constant state of irritation. I know there is a better way to live, it has taken me this long to learn how. I can breath, I can move forward, I can keep smiling, I can be grateful for all that which I experience. I can chose how I react to what happens to me. I wake up every morning with a wealth of gratitude for my life. I am confident that I will look back at this as one of the most important turning points of my life.

Practice gratitude. Embody positivity. Stay hungry.

-Dan