"There was a perverse comfort in inertia. As a physician, I had learned the need for hope. Yet I had completely abandoned it. Despite education and knowledge and experience, when you are the patient -- suffering, confused, and despairing -- it is very, very hard to take matters into your own hands. I was not able to stand alone and challenge the prevailing assumptions. I needed an external voice, strong and determined, to guide me...

      As the days passed.... I pictured resuming activities so long gone. I imagined myself stronger, able to walk comfortably, to lift, to travel, to play sports. The power of the possibility became too much to resist.

      How I could ever risk such maneuvers? The thought of it terrified me. But deep down flickered the desire to fight. 

      When the pain and exhaustion from the maneuvers were at their worst, when doubt raised its strident voice and said Rainville's talk was bullshit, I summoned a dreamy vision of the future... Each fantasy released a current of warm, soft energy that suffused my body. My exhausted muscles and taut ligaments seemed deeply nourished in its wake. My spine, in its cacophony of pain, became distinctly quieter. These physical perceptions made me feel foolish and perplexed but curiously intrigued.

      Over three months or so, the constant pain became intermittent, then rare... 

      I realised that the surgeon had said to me what I had so ineptly said at times in my career to others: that there was no hope. Medicine is too uncertain a science, biology too variable, to have that kind of hubris...

      Advancing to each new level caused days of spasm and pain, but I tried to ignore it all, repeating Rainville's mantra, that my body was relinquishing an old form of memory and acquiring a new narrative...

      But I also told myself that I could live happily within my new boundaries. I had gained, above all, the sense that I had some level of control over my choices.

      After my recovery, I though about what I had learned from my experience. I tried to see how it could give me a more profound understanding of my patients and how to help them. There were obvious differences between my situation and theirs. I was not afflicted with a potentially terminal disease and did not have to contemplate the possibility of impending death. Nonetheless, there were important similarities. My patients often must pass through painful and debilitating therapies for any chance of achieving a remission. And the hardest part can be taking the very first step. Fear is often the most significant hurdle--fear of pointless pain and suffering. For my patients, as for me, it was hope that inspired the courage to overcome fear, and solidified resilience during an arduous treatment. 

      I was most intrigued by the sense that I may have felt physical changes caused by hope. But i distrusted my impression. Scientists view personal anecdotes and impressions warily, and rightly so."

- The Anatomy of Hope