Life is tricky stuff. You don’t want to obsess about what can go wrong, but you also don’t want to take it for granted, be oblivious to what’s going on around you and have life just blur by.

It’s precious stuff, folks.

Several things have triggered this week’s round of self-therapy. One is the recent flurry of bad health news surrounding some of the famous broadcast folks in our area.

You know how you think, “Oh, that was a couple of years ago, maybe five at the most.” Then, I look to see when radio icon Bob Rivers retired from broadcasting and it was 2014. Seriously? 8 years ago? My wife and I were lucky enough to grab an in-studio spot to witness the last broadcast up close, as Bob and his wife Lisa sold their estate out in North Bend and headed to the northeast, where they came from. They settled down on a pretty cool place in Vermont and Bob, among other things, took up the hobby of making maple syrup. Damn fine, maple syrup, I might add, as I bought a couple of jugs of this year’s harvest following some Facebook posts about the process. You can order some right here.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Bob dropped this bomb on his blog. He’s in a fight for his life, so that means he’s going to be taking some time off from his blog and podcast, to put up the good fight. In his words, “It’s serious. And there are three forks this journey can take. One may be brief, nuff said. The middle fork, and most likely, as I’m an excellent candidate for surgery, brings me back to a good quality of life for at least a few years. The third fork in this path has led me to two patients from the same medical team as me, alive and kicking in their 80’s.”

It’s just not fair.

Another Seattle radio guy who came from a famous role on a 70s TV series, Danny Bonaduce, has also taken leave from his morning show at KZOK. After his “Partridge Family” days, Danny went to into radio and had settled down in Seattle for the past 11 years. However, a couple of Fridays back, he announced he was going to be taking a medical leave for an undisclosed illness. His sister described it as a “mystery illness.”

And it was just last October that Channel 13 Meteorologist M.J. McDermott handed off the reigns of her weather duties to a friend of mine, Brian MacMillan. I chatted with M.J. about her future plans and she was so excited to be able to retire and pursue some of her other dreams. You can hear my interview with her here.

But a mere six months after hanging up her thermometer, M.J. got her bad medical news. She was diagnosed with Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma, Stage 1, and has started undergoing treatments. Not in her retirement game plan.

Now, all of the above folks and yours truly are part of fast-growing 60+ club and I’ve been encouraging people to pass along their prayers and positive thoughts as their beliefs dictate. When you get into this age category, it’s amazing how many friends and family you start hearing about and the unfortunate health woes that stalk them.

It goes back to my original thought–life is tricky. Hearing about all three of these brothers and sisters in broadcasting experiencing these health problems is just one more reminder of our frailty; but we just don’t want to think about that all the time. I mean, why spend what time you do have left worrying about how it will someday be gone?

I’ve known about their health news for a while. What I didn’t know about until this morning was the diagnosis this young student I don’t even know received this past week that just grabbed my heart. We were all in her position at one time–excited to head out into the working world, starting a life, raising a family….all those regular life challenges that are tough enough. But then you get slapped with a thing like this.

Life shouldn’t be a battle, but for far too many of us, it becomes one, when we least expect it. And it’s even more cruel when it happens to someone in their 20s, just starting out.

I’d say the bulk of us all that drive to get that next promotion, upgrade to a nicer car or home, go on the vacation that we’ve always dreamed of taking. These days, I find that what I’m trying to do in my own world is take it all one day on a time, treat every day as the precious gift it is, and be grateful for what I don’t have.

If you need examples of those things, go back to the top of the page.

Keep fighting, Maddie. Godspeed to everyone having to alter their life plan to deal with bad health news.

And if that doesn’t include you, there’s the first thing you should be grateful for every time you wake up.

Tim Hunter