You don’t always have a choice about the challenges you face, Inge learned, but you do get to choose the attitude you bring to them.
For too long Inge had ignored some unpleasant physical symptoms, dismissing them as stress from her demanding sales job. But a visit to her doctor and a battery of tests revealed something life-threatening: a large mass, almost certainly cancer, that must be removed quickly.
When Inge met with her surgeon, he explained the risks and recommended that she “get her affairs in order.”
“What do you mean?” Inge asked. She paused for several seconds. “All the way to the funeral?”
“Yes,” the doctor said quietly.
Stunned and numb, Inge spent the next week writing letters to her children and making funeral preparations.
Later in the week, as she was driving to the funeral home to finalize her plans, she suddenly remembered a recent conversation with her close friend. “We’ve been talking at work about something called the FISH! Philosophy,” her friend had said. Strange name, Inge thought. But as her friend went on to explain what FISH! was all about, two concepts caught her attention: Be There and Choose Your Attitude.
As Inge drove, she recognized what she must do. She decided to choose, consciously and intentionally, the attitude she would apply to the rest of her uncertain future. She turned the car around and drove home with a clear sense of purpose.
Inge decided to rename her cancer “the Glob” and asked everyone around her to call it that, too. She did not know if she could beat cancer, but she knew she could take on a glob.
The morning of her surgery, Inge woke up energized. She called the funeral home and left a message to cancel plans for her funeral. “I’ve changed my mind and I’m not coming,” she said.
When Inge arrived at the operating room, she asked to meet with the surgical team. “I know you have seen what I have seen, and you have heard what I have heard, that I may very well die on the table,” she told them. “But my daughter is graduating with a double master’s degree with honors at the end of June. I am a single parent and I have to Be There for her. Also she is getting married in September and I have promised to walk her down the aisle and I am not backing out of it.
“I am asking you to not permit any negativity in this room. I am asking for energy. I am asking for laughter and a few prayers. I am asking you to operate on me with the attitude of improving my life. When you look at me during surgery, please see a lady who is walking her daughter down the aisle.”
Then Inge gave them a CD she had made with her favorite high-energy rock-and-roll songs. The last thing she heard before she went under was “Tutti Frutti” and a nurse laughing.
When Inge woke up, a nurse asked with a big smile if she was OK. “Of course I’m OK,” Inge said softly before drifting back to a deep, healing sleep. Inge’s surgeon stopped by her room a few hours later and she thanked him for doing a great job. He responded by telling her that he was confident that he had removed all of “the Glob” and her prognosis was very favorable. He told Inge how the music had kept everyone on their toes, and how energetic and positive the staff had been.
Inge told him to keep the CD. “I’ve tried this cancer thing, and it wasn’t a lot of fun, so I won’t be doing it again,” she said, laughing.
The surgeon laughed, too. He told Inge no one had ever spoken to his staff like she had and that it had made a difference. Inge asked the surgeon if he would deliver a similar message to his team before future surgeries, and he agreed. A year later, when she saw the surgeon for a follow-up, he said he was still using the CD and had created other upbeat soundtracks to play during operations.
Life—and cancer—comes with no guarantees, even with the most positive attitude. Inge chose how she approached what she could control. It might not have increased the surgical team’s medical skills, but it did affect how they applied the skills they already possessed.
According to Inge, “the Glob” woke her up. It helped her see life in a new way. Each person is a gift and each day is a gift, she told herself. No longer did she take anything for granted. She decided to Play, to have fun. She always did her best to Be There and, without hesitation, to Choose Her Attitude. “It makes each day better and keeps me aware of all the great people and blessings around me,” Inge says. “It makes me and those around me happy.”