Be Not Afraid
The most difficult part of the serious illness journey is the temptation to give in to fear. The Bible says “Be not afraid” many, many times. Your faith, even if it is fragile or unsure, can make the difference for you on this rollercoaster. It will help you find peace and balance when there are challenges. At first, just pray — however, wherever, you can. Pray.
Odds are, you and your loved ones have been doing that interiorly ever since the medical diagnosis. Making it clear to yourself and to God that you are asking for his help, though, will give you a few moments of peace. Give it all to God — throw it at him if you need to (respectfully, if you can). He will not be upset if you are upset; he will just be glad you came to him. There may be times you have only him. He really can give you a sense of balance and peace in the midst of the craziness of a diagnosis. And moreover, he wants to.
Prayer does not need memorization, formulas, or books. You may want to close your eyes, grasp a rosary, get on your knees, or lift your head high. It is up to you. Talk to God, even if you haven’t said much of anything to him in years. Tell him all that is on your heart. Then, straighten up, take a deep breath, and tell yourself to not be afraid — even if you are terrified. Like I was.
Chapter Two
Look for the Good
I will praise you, LORD, with all my heart; I will declare all your wondrous deeds.
— PSALM 9:2
You may have had your doubts, but you have survived at least the initial shock of your diagnosis. No matter what you’re facing, though, there will continue to be challenging “aftershocks” and new things to learn about. Consider it a new school or a new unit study — one you probably didn’t intend to sign up for! You will need to learn the vocabulary, procedures, purposes, and potential outcomes. There will be side journeys, new people in your life, and new places. There will be choices to make. Somewhere between recognizing your diagnosis and accepting it, there is a space where God can enter and help you tremendously. Here are six tools that make a difference.
Travel Light
Considering that this is not an unexpected, all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii or Europe or Australia, it may be hard to imagine it as a journey of any sort — but it is. Any new journey offers an opportunity for a fresh start. You make a new packing list. You set aside clean clothes. You keep necessary new purchases in a special place. You may even clean your house or apartment so that it is neat and tidy when you return. In addition, it is usually best to travel as lightly as possible. The less and lighter the luggage, the easier it is to travel through an airport, by a ship, or even just to a hotel. Traveling light also leaves room to pick up souvenirs and gifts that help you remember the good things that happen along the road.
So, before you start this new journey, consider making a fresh start and traveling light. You can begin by turning to the Lord to ask for forgiveness. If you are Catholic, this means going to the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. Don’t close the book! Remember: “Be not afraid!” Confession is a great gift. It is not preparation for the end. But it can be preparation for the journey you’ll be taking, courtesy of a serious medical diagnosis. Confession lightens your load by taking away all your sins, and it gives you the grace you need for a fresh start. It is free, doesn’t take much time, and it will recharge your spiritual life.
This is even more important if you have been away from the Church. On the practical side, if it has been years since your last confession, there are options other than just showing up at the scheduled times. It’s possible to call and make an appointment. You can consult the websites of nearby parishes to see when confession is offered. No one will even know. Maybe just write down the phone number, or ask someone you know to pick up a bulletin from a local church. If you do decide to go, don’t worry: no one is going to yell at you. Every priest I know is thrilled whenever someone comes back to the church. If you cannot bring yourself to go to confession right now, just keep thinking and praying about it. Sooner is better, but our good God understands when we need to take baby steps.
Find a Focus
You will find that there is always more to learn about the illness that is affecting your life. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was homeschooling our children. So we did a unit study on the basics of cancer. Weird, right? But it was a great decision. It helped the kids (and me) learn the new vocabulary that we would soon be hearing and using. It helped us all take a step back and treat cancer as a subject, one which could be discussed in a scientific way. In general, it just helped to diffuse some of the emotion and to encourage more analysis — even on an elementary level. It also enabled us to compartmentalize, or set boundaries around, the illness.
Boundaries are important because any major illness tends to engulf your entire life, quickly becoming the soundtrack that plays behind everything you think, say, and do. Gathering information will show you the numbers of people affected by serious diagnoses and the countless variations of these illnesses. That, in turn, can help us to resist the normal tendency to focus on one’s self. Studying whatever disease has interrupted your life also empowers you to process the entire situation. Catholicism is known for bringing faith and reason together. Now is a good time to use both of those to the fullest in your own life.
The life you are living at this moment in time, with extra everything — more phone calls, more doctors, different foods, more exhaustion plus the normal requirements of life — is likely to leave you gasping for air. This is true for friends, family members, and caretakers as well. It can feel like a crazy theme park filled with terrifying thrill rides, rollercoaster highs and lows, and lots of screaming — at least internally. In the midst of all this, you need something else, or better yet someone else, to focus on.
Finding more time for prayer when you’re struggling to squeeze more into your calendar than ever seems almost laughable. However, many will find that they are already praying more than ever before. The trick is to gradually move from constant prayers of desperation to other types of prayer. You can do this slowly and with gentleness. Your prayer does not need to be memorized, scheduled, or regulated. Just as after the initial shock of a serious diagnosis, one moves into acceptance and a new routine, so your prayer life can also move from panic to peace. Reading a sentence like that last one can drive me crazy. The fact is, it’s not that easy, and I do not intend to present it as if it is.
When learning to do repetitive 360-degree spins, ballet dancers are taught to focus on one stationery point, just one, while they are spinning. This technique is called spotting, and it is the only way to keep balance and stability. In the same way, you can find more balance in the midst of medical nightmares when you keep a focus, not on yourself but on God. There are many ways to do this — and the more options you can develop, the better.
Be Grateful
A simple place to start is to be grateful. Grateful? This seems counterintuitive at best. What is there to be grateful for when you or a loved one has just received horrible news; maybe even news of a terminal diagnosis? No one is asking you to be happy about what is happening. But you don’t have to be grateful for your situation to be grateful in the challenges you are facing. If you can look around you and find something, anything, that is good, it can change your whole outlook.
In the midst of trying and failing to gain some control of my life after my stage III cancer diagnosis, a dear friend sent me a gift of a blank journal. The short note that came with it simply said to write five things every day for which I was grateful. This was nice. But I cannot say that I appreciated it at first. I had no idea how life changing that small journal would be.
The first few pages of my gratitude journal are blank. Then I wrote Luke 12:4-8:
I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you,