My favourite quote from Doctor Who is “I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams.” -Matt Smith (11th Doctor) Which I feel describes me to a tee. Growing up with medical problems as well as a physical disability there were a few phrases I heard almost daily. The one that hurt the most was being told that I couldn’t take part in an activity or achieve the same goals as everyone else. I always thought I could do everything else and learned to roll with the punches and being undercut at every goal.

Then seeing the raggedy man with a box come crashing down from some far-off galaxy saying that in“900 years of time and space and I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important.” -Matt Smith and “I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams.” -Matt Smith, I started to believe that anything was possible, even if the impossible was me, a girl with a rare medical condition and chronic problems graduating high school and getting into university. Then I started to believe that even I could change the world for the better.

I saw an episode of Doctor Who after a particularly bad day. My health problems were causing me grieve and I was missing classes because of it. Then the Doctor was running through time and space and was unable to walk past a fez while trying to save a planet under impossible circumstances. I suddenly realized that this man, fictional as he may be, has never given up on any challenge to big, or tried not to save everyone. He never walks away until there is nothing that can be done and everyone is dead or in an alternate reality that he can’t get to. He always does it with some dramatics & humour. So if he can save the world while cracking jokes, I can pull myself together and get a good grade in my classes while attached to my machines keeping me alive.

So, Thank You Mad Man with a box, in all your forms. You kept me from going insane and focusing on the future. Raggedy man, you kept me laughing when all I could do was cry, and for that I thank you.

“Well, of course, I’m being childish! There’s no point being grown-up if you can’t be childish sometimes.” -Tom Baker (4th Doctor)