Would You Quit?

This is not a story about the Affordable Care Act, or health insurance, or politics, or the Supreme Court, or the presidential election. Regular readers know that I keep this space as apolitical as humanly possible because that sort of thing just isn't in my wheelhouse.

This is a story about my good friend Amy, who -- thanks to a terrifying health scare -- has become a spokesperson for the Affordable Care Act. I want to tell my friend Amy's story, but nobody tells it as well as Amy does. Thus, the gentleman yields the floor:

So there's your backstory. On to the question at hand.

Better Half and I went to dinner with Amy and her husband Ross not long ago, and the pressing question on Amy's mind for me that night was, what if your doctors said you should no longer do what you love to do? I bounced it around, a brain-twisting hypothetical for me -- but it's a reality for my friend. After all, once you've done time in a medically-induced coma, all systems going dark thanks to the fungal infection you picked up falling out of your kayak into a lake, the medical staff that (somehow, miraculously) brought you back amongst the world of the living isn't keen on seeing you paddle out again. They'd rather you handle their handiwork with extreme caution.

I tried, really tried, to put good brain cells against that question, but I'm not sure you can get there unless you've been there. Sure, I broke my femur once, the major connecting rod to one of the pistons in my two-cylinder engine. And while there were moments in my recovery when I wondered if I really could ride again, my supremely arrogant surgeon (I kid because I love, Dr. T) seemed never to doubt that I'd turn pedals, and soon. And he was right. I never had to face that stark wall of "AGAINST MEDICAL ADVICE". I got my aftermarket hardware, sat out part of one biking season, and popped right back up, a well-insured Weeble with only a bitchin' scar and some 'splainin' to do at airport security to show for it.

But Amy really has to decide. To do the thing she loves, literally risking death to go out on the water, or to put it aside and spend the rest of her life on the shore. It's easy to have the flip answer, the swaggering, "Hell no! I wouldn't quit!" Think that through again, though. Think about someone you care about, who cares about you. You don't have to live with the consequences, but that person does. Has to go through the rest of their life wondering why they didn't try harder to stop you.

I could turn this one over in my head for years and not have an answer. I guess I'll just be happy with the fact that I still have my good friend Amy around to ask the question.