At 22 years old I was diagnosed with an extremely rare blood disorder and was told that by age 40 it would have probably run it;s course to it's end stage (i.e. the point where my bone marrow would be so scarred up that it would no longer produce blood cells - you know what that leads to...) or (and imagine this as the "better" alternative) you might be in the extremely small percentage that has is morph into an acute form of leukemia.
Well, as many know, age 36 rolled around and I was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia and told my only chance of lasting remission was to undergo a Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT). That "lasting remission" lasted 3 years when I was informed that the Leukemia had returned and once again I was back to square one - if I wanted to even try to survive I would need to attempt a BMT again, this time we would not only ablate my 3 year old "new" immune system with chemotherapy, we would also use TBI Total Body Irradiation to "throw" something different at it. Needless to say it's almost 5 years later, I still battle daily the complications of graft vs. host disease (basically my immune system still trying to protect itself from this foreign invader of someone else's immune system that has engrafted to become my immune system).
Despite all this - I still look forward to each day. For me, the time I've been given with those I love and cherish is worth the effort, worth the difficulties and pain I face daily. I'll be 45 years old in less than a month, since I was diagnosed at 22 I've married a wonderful woman with two children, one that I've raised as my own since he was 8 (he is turning 28 this year - yes my wife is a few years older than I am, not many, but she had children at a young age) and one that was 16 and has since gifted my life with two young children that think of me as their only grandfather (yup, that's right - two very young children call me grandpa and I'm only 44 - life is a trip isn't it).
Given all I've been through it would be very easy to understand if early on I let it get to me, thought of quitting and letting it all end, but when life gave me lemons, I said, fuck that! lets make some lemonade and lets add some vodka!
Life is worth it - at least for me.
An extreme example, perhaps, but even in my case I always think of others that have had it worse than me and think of those experiences I would have never had if I chose not to fight.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
