The Healing of a Serious Illness

In Western societies, good health is taken for granted; ill health is associated with bad habits or bad luck. Many people, doctors included, consider ill health a sign of weakness, and so adopt a paternalistic approach towards people when they are ill, treating them as weak and helpless children, victims, and objects of pity. A life-threatening disease is also an unwelcome reminder to everyone around you of the inevitable passing of life.

To get through the eye of the storm, you need to remind yourself that good health cannot be taken for granted, and that disease is an integral part of the human condition. A life-threatening or chronic disease can teach you about survival, and remind you that while you can often overcome disease, you cannot conquer death. It begs you not to abuse your good health, and demands you try to find balance in your life. It shows you that the opposite of fear is not fearlessness, but courage, and that the things that become important are the things that are important. It even reminds you that you may die before your parents or your children.

There will be times when it's hard to keep this perspective—times when your fears and anxieties overshadow your hopes and joys. This can happen even after you have recovered, when a visit to your doctor for a check-up or a drive past the hospital where you had your treatment reminds you of the more frightening times you endured and may even cause some of the physical symptoms you experienced during treatment to recur—fortunately these are usually milder, and pass fairly quickly.

It may be hard for you to imagine this right now, but further down the track—perhaps when you reach 5 or 10 AD (After Diagnosis)—you may remember, with a sigh of relief and a sense of gratefulness, how your life once seemed to be suspended by a thread, but is now more securely tethered.

People deal with problems in their own way, some more successfully than others. You may take the view that the best way is to put your disease out of your mind, keep busy in order to distract yourself, and hope the problem will go away. You may find your disease and its treatments all too much to bear, pretend it's not your problem, and leave everything to your doctor and your family.

These coping strategies may provide you with temporary relief, but they are a retreat from reality. What happens when, alone with your thoughts, your anxieties refuse to go away? Worrying about a situation you feel powerless to influence saps your energy, destroys your will, and keeps you focused on the difficulties facing you rather than looking for ways to overcome them. Your response may be, "What's the use?"—especially if the prognosis is grim, you feel there is no quality of life, or your advanced age tells you there is so little to look forward to, that you mark time by reminiscing.

I cannot comment on your decision to adopt this approach if you are very old, but I don't believe there can be no going forward when you are chained to the past, locked in by your fears, and bound by no hope. You stand little chance of coping with your illness, even less of relieving your misery, if dwelling on the past and worrying about the future prevents you from living in the present. The most effective strategy is to confront the problem, act accordingly, and let whatever happens in the future flow from your actions rather than your fears. I know it isn't easy when you feel stressed out, but there is always more than one solution to a problem—and the only one that's right is the one that's right for you, not your spouse, partner, family or friends. Your life and theirs may run in tandem, but you can only live your own life. In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran, poet and mystic, summed this up well:
"And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand part,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

If you have any health or illness related questions you would like me to answer, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. My answers to your questions will be posted on our blog and it is my sincere hope these will be helpful to you.

In light and peace
Joel