My Story: My experience as a patient dealing with a serious medical condition

Patients dealing with serious injury or illness often rely on caregivers and coping techniques to set goals and achieve them. Rolf Benirschke describes his own experience.

Transcript

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Walk to the neighbor's mailbox and back. The next day, I was going to walk two mailboxes and back. I mean, that's ludicrous.

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California, the houses are very close, right? It's not a big accomplishment. But it was a goal that was achieved. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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I was lucky. You know, there are some things I learned. I learned that you have to break time down into bite sizes. You can't look at six months from now.

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You've got to look, how do I get through the day? I learned to set little goals. For me, it was to get out of bed and walk to the neighbor's

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mailbox and back. And the next day, I was going to walk two mailboxes and back. I mean, that's ludicrous. California, the houses are very close, right?

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It's not a big accomplishment. But it was a goal that was achieved. It was-- it was discovering this indomitable spirit

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that we each have. It was recognizing that I had to lean on others. I couldn't do it alone, even though my pride--

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our pride-- makes it really hard to accept help from somebody when you know you'll never

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be able to pay it back. Incredibly difficult to do. But when you do that, you bless the person

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that wants to help you. And one day, you--

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you do get a chance to thank them. You'll never repay them, but you get the chance to thank them. And I-- and I think, in coming through

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that, you learn what you're on this Earth for. It gives you a mission. Our challenge is to find out what it is.

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And when you find it and can serve others like that, it's--