Start with one excellent childhood experience — a loved one who is cured.
Add a generous helping of baseline optimism, a cup at least.  More is better.
Mix in well a half cup of ability to suspend disbelief.  And then, maybe a pinch more.
Add a teaspoon or two or even three of denial.  Pollyanna had it right.

Remember to include an ounce of prevention —
Worth a pound of cure, so they say.  Suspend a quart of judgement, or two.
Make sure the oven is preheated with family.  Children help sweeten the mix.
Add three pets, or more.  A dog to welcome you home.  Two cats to curl up with.

Believe, truly believe in the best of all outcomes.
“Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.”  Voltaire knew.
A gallon of forgetfulness goes a long way to wash the silt of failure away.
When there is nothing else, pray. Or wish.  Or hope.  Or desire.

Ice the cake of sadness with a sweet coating of self-forgiveness.
And when that recipe fails, start again.  Be kind.  Your patients are waiting.

Miranda Fielding is a radiation oncologist who blogs at the Crab Diaries.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com