I needed major surgery.

Not just for the aggressive skin cancer over my left chest.

But for a wound that I couldn't heal on my own.

I tried burying myself in my work.

That didn't help.

It made things worse.

What I had not healed inside out was projecting outside.

Overwhelmed with the realities of 21st-century medicine.

Competing for time.

Competing for patients.

Competing for acceptance.

Competing for status.

I needed surgery for strength and wisdom.

I needed my father in my life.

To teach me how to bounce back from adversity.

How to be honest.

In my emotions.

In my heart.

How to get up off the floor and back into the fight.

How to embrace my inner Rocky Balboa.

How it's perfectly human to be afraid.

Perfectly okay to feel the fear and do it anyway.

"It" being life.

A life without regrets.

A conscious life.

I had major surgery.

I lived.