Heroes Not Zombies

Some boats have such great names. This is one of my all time favourites. I can’t see this without thinking someone likes to prove the impossible is, actually, possible after all!

Maybe one of the reasons that I like to claim that the impossible isn’t impossible is that through my working life as a doctor I was frequently surprised by the turn of events.

I know that prognosis is one of the skills doctors are taught. However my experience was that individual patients didn’t conform to the predictions we’d make based on our knowledge of pathology and the natural history of disease.

I learned that the hard way. In my first few days as a junior hospital doctor I admitted a seriously ill elderly lady to a ward. Her two, also elderly, daughters were sitting in the corridor visibly distraught. They asked me if their mum was going to be ok, and wanting to reassure them, I said “Oh yes, of course.” The words were no sooner out of my mouth when one of the nurses called me over to tell me the old lady had just died. I didn’t make that mistake again!

Of course none of us can predict the future. One day one of patients told me her husband had recently been told he had only three months left to live. I asked her how that made her feel. She replied “Really angry”. That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. “Why angry?” I asked. She replied “Well why does he get to know how long he’s got and I don’t know how long I’ve got?”

I guess a lot of impossible things are impossible but it’s just hard to know what the future holds so, sometimes, what seems impossible isn’t impossible after all.

I think of that these days when the world seems so full of crises and difficulties. Can we make a better world? Can we learn from these crises and change direction?

I think we can.

I don’t think it’s impossible.