People have gone on pilgrimages for hundreds if not thousands of years. Many pilgrims were those with a life-altering diagnosis hoping for a miracle. If the person were too sick to make the journey and they have the means they would hire someone to walk the pilgrimage for them as a surrogate and then make their way to the pilgrimage site to attain the healing words.
Today’s pilgrimages are often different. They are the journey not of hundreds of walking miles, but many miles below the surface of our psyche. It is the determination to keep moving forward believing there is always one more thing that can be done, even if that one thing is pain control. It’s the commitment to making your voice heard so that hopefully within your lifetime researchers will be closer to developing tests and treatment that become patient specific.
Think about the news for screening men for prostate cancer. The new bio-research is developing the technology that will be able to evaluate for certain proteins or other markers making diagnosis more accurate and the need for unnecessary biopsies will disappear. These are incredible times and it’s fueled by those of us who continue talking to our medical personnel, the researchers, our politicians and our foundations to keep them on the path of this journey. Being part of monumental change can be daunting, but thinking of the internal boost your soul will receive knowing you’ve been part of creating “personal medicine”.
Think about how good it will feel if you get to be the recipient of the technology or research that you stood up to have completed. You make history and that’s priceless.
Pilgrim Pathway/Surviving Strong 