The Martian

One of my favorite movies in recent years is The Martian with Matt Damon. In the film, Damon's character is part of a team of astronauts that are exploring the planet Mars. Through a series of unfortunate events, he ends up getting stranded alone on the planet. He quickly comes to the realization that his situation is dire with ridiculously low odds of survival. But instead of losing himself to despair, he decides to work the problem and get himself out of his situation. 

Here's a quick clip:

In the end – spoiler alert! – he survives and lives to share his experiences with others. 

So I'm taking The Martian as my inspiration movie, and this is my motto for 2024: "Work the Problem. We're Gonna Science the Shit Outta This!" I've even written it down in the front piece of my personal notebook/journal this year:

My goal is to learn everything I possibly can about this disease, and do everything I can to beat the odds of it taking me down.

Karla and I have already started down the path. We're consulting with every specialist we can. We're getting second opinions on everything. We're reading everything we can get our hands on. And we're formulating our plan for the best possible outcome.

Back in the day when I fancied myself some kind of competitive athlete, I used to run 10k's, half-marathons, and marathons. I did long-distance road bike races and solo time-trials several times a year. OK...so never mind that I was never any good or truly competitive, but I approached my events and training seriously and with purpose. I was out mostly to beat myself. In any case, my approach to success was to fix a date on the calendar for a given event and develop a training plan for the weeks ahead of it so that I was in the best condition to perform on the event date.

I'm going to approach my transplant like I used to approach my athletic events. Even before we're close to having a date at Froedert, and beyond the doctors and nurses who will be part of the transplant team, we're lining up our own prep squad with a physical therapist, nutritionist, and a Doctor of Chinese medicine, who is a master of acupuncture, Qi Gong, herbalism, and meditation. This team is going to engineer my prep leading up to my hospitalization date. I plan to walk into the transplant wing as the specimen of a 62-year old male – emotionally, spiritually, and physically fit.