There is so much discomfort around the idea of death that people brush the thought away as soon as it appears. The fear of losing a loved one is so strong that you cannot mention death without the immediate mention of \u201cGod forbid.\u201d Perhaps, it is not simply the fear of losing someone, but rather the fear of losing that obvious presence, those meaningful conversations, the affection and most importantly, the unadulterated love. Death takes away that bond and it hurts. The pain of missed opportunities regurgitates and you always wish there was more time.<\/p>\n
My father\u2019s illness has made me face thoughts of losing him, time and again. Every chemotherapy cycle, every MRI scan, every appointment with the oncologist, has been a test to not let such thoughts cloud my rationality. However, rationality doesn\u2019t work in the realisation of life\u2019s finiteness. You are surrounded by pain and anguish that nothing really makes sense, and it almost feels like you cannot breathe. There is no easy way to handle such feelings, but perhaps some ways to accept them, maybe overlook them, and grow stronger.<\/p>\n
1. Learn to balance the good and the bad news: When it\u2019s cancer our mindsets are so fear ridden, that even a good news is taken in with suspicion. Being cautious is prudent, but not enjoying a positive development is losing one occasion to smile through a difficult journey. Similarly, in case of a difficult prognosis, it is okay to not fight thoughts of distress and agony. Challenging the doctors to falsify a diagnosis leads to burnout and fatigue. Learn to balance out pain with reason; hold your patient\u2019s hand, tell them it might get hard but they\u2019ll never be alone and move forward.<\/p>\n
2. Distil the feelings of grief: Grief, shakes the core of our emotional strength, pulls us into depths of sadness we have not witnessed without offering any escape. And that\u2019s why, understanding grief is important for anyone going through a tough phase. Read about what it actually entails \u2013 stories of struggle and survival, and search for answers that might work for you. Sheryl Sandberg\u2019s Option B, and Paul Kalanithi\u2019s When Breath Becomes Air, are two of the major books of influence that I have found to be valuable sources of comfort and strength in trying times.<\/p>\n
3. Celebrate life everyday: We all search for special occasions to take photographs and create albums to look back. But some of the most memorable times are the casual existences; the jokes and laughter, the evening walks and aimless afternoon chats, the winter dinners followed by hot cups of tea and discussions around politics. They might vary for everyone, but it is vital to enjoy such instances and soak them as best times, rather than hope for new occasions to celebrate. It is precisely the gift of cancer, to make one value everyday in the smallest of doses.<\/p>\n
Cancer can penetrate into every part of our life\u2019s decision making, but cannot make that decision. That power still lies with the individual. One can choose to succumb to its presence and stop living life, or accept it and still continue being alive, share joy with others and become a source of strength for everyone around.<\/p>\n
My father has done precisely that. Even in the hardest phase of his life, he has continued to work, to travel, to cheer up and move on. As Paul Kalanithi wrote, \u201cThere is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.\u201d And my dad is an example of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is so much discomfort around the idea of death that people brush the thought away as soon as it appears. The fear of losing a loved one is so strong that you cannot mention death without the immediate mention of \u201cGod forbid.\u201d Perhaps, it is not simply the fear of losing someone, but rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25308,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25306\/revisions\/25308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}