Switching your residency

Read a very well-written honest article recently by the author Christopher Hitchens, on his diagnosis with cancer and subsequent chemotherapy. He talks about the onset of his symptoms as a kind of forced migration to a new country:

"I had the time to wonder why they needed so many boots and helmets and so much heavy backup equipment, but now that I view the scene in retrospect I see it as a very gentle and firm deportation, taking me from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady. Within a few hours, having had to do quite a lot of emergency work on my heart and my lungs, the physicians at this sad border post had shown me a few other postcards from the interior and told me that my immediate next stop would have to be with an oncologist."

Sometimes we choose our country of residency, sometimes it chooses us. Lately, I've been fascinated, inspired, and even overwhelmed by the courage and creativity people show in dealing with the place in which they find themselves.