Recovering from a difficult surgery, a prolonged hospitalization, or dealing with a chronic and complicated illness is a challenge. It often gets a bit disheartening as the weeks and months trudge on.
It’s just such situations that remind me of Aesop’s fable of the ‘Tortoise and the Hare’. We all remember the story of the slow plodding tortoise being raced by the fast hopping hare, but I think because bugs bunny and other rabbit icons have become such fixtures in our minds, that we tend to think that the rabbit made out; well, he didn’t. It is the slow and steady tortoise the reaches the finish line first and wins the day.
So….when it’s seeming like the challenges keep coming, always remember what I tell my patients……”Remember…the tortoise won the race.”