Control what you can and forget the rest

In room 19 my friend lay hooked up to the machine that pushed air into his lungs and sucked it out again, aiding the muscles that were too wasted to do it themselves. A few minutes off this and he would start to suffocate. His skin was pasty and scaly, and inside his smart stripey pajamas he was starting to look like someone rescued from a concentration camp. Despite the sun I could see shining on the grass and roses outside his window the bed was piled high with blankets because his wasted body meant he was always cold.

‘There was a lot of excitement here yesterday,’ he told me painfully slowly, his eyes shining with the news. I had learned to understand him when he talked through the mask, although it was hard at first.
‘What happened?’
‘One of the ladies with Alzheimer’s went for a walk and they couldn’t find her. She hid in my room.’
‘Bloody hell,’ I laughed. ‘Did they find her in the end?’
‘I had to ring for the nurses and tell them where she was.’

That was about as exciting as it got in there. I fell quiet then asked him ‘How are you?’
‘As well as can be expected,’ he replied, as usual, but I wanted more.
‘Are you feeling sad?’
‘What’s the point?’ His thin shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. ‘I can’t change it. I can either focus on the things I can’t do or on the things I can, so I focus on the things I can.’

This was an amazing change for a man who formerly rivalled Chicken Little with his capacity to worry about every little thing that might go wrong. In some ways he was happier now than before he got sick. Part of that was because of the high level of female attention he was getting, which he thrived on. But a big part of it was his new philosophy of focusing only on what he could control and not fretting about all the rest. To my surprise, as the one who had always been more positive, I found him inspiring.