Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Life Sentence

People get sick. They get treatment and then they get better. Or people get sick. They get treatment and they die anyway. These are the models of illness we know best. But in chronic illness, people get sick, get treatment, and stay sick. The goals are management and quality of life, not a cure. Get well soon rings pretty hollow when there is no cure in sight. Chronic conditions are expected in old age, but not in the prime of life. We haven’t been given a death sentence. We’ve been given a life sentence and there is no hope for parole.

A life sentence is pretty hard to accept. So we challenge the diagnosis. We repeat tests and run from specialist to specialist, hoping to get a different answer. Insanity, by the way, is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Something curable would be nice. If traditional medicine can’t give us the answers we want, we look for “natural” cures. Maybe, just maybe, that exotic foufou leaf concoction holds the answer, or magnets, or inversion swings, or the latest fad cure diet. Now really, would millions be spent on research if these things really did the trick? You know the answer. Still, we know we’re the exception that proves the rule. We’ll find that elusive cure all by ourselves. There are no magic bullets out there. Call it hope if you wish, but it’s a form of denial. Before you start getting defensive, denial, in the early stages after diagnosis is not all that bad. Denial protects us from harsh realities. Denial gives us time to regroup and make adjustments. Denial makes time for the implications to sink in. Want to live successfully with your illness? Let the denial cushion the blow for a little while. Then use acceptance as the starting point for transforming your life.

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