The experience drove home once again the importance of self-education and the need to continually search out the very latest medical information, while avoiding literature that is several years behind the times, misleading, and possibly even dangerous. I now rely less on my own haphazardly gathered medical source materials and more on information available through support organizations, university bookstores, government agencies, and on-line computer services.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Staying up to date is my responsibility.
March 9
“God! Thou art love! I build my faith on that.”
ROBERT BROWNING
When illness comes to visit it often brings with it a considerable amount of baggage. One suitcase may overflow with an emotion-packed “Why me?” Another may be crammed with messages like, “I deserve to be sick!” Still another may be packed solid with, “I’m half the person I used to be” notions.
There are those who try to get rid of such self-destructive burdens by denying the reality of their illness. But, of course, that is self-destructive in its own way. Others attempt to bury the baggage and its cargo of negativity by pretending that they are self-accepting, self-confident, and in control, even though they are not.
For some of us, the most effective way to lighten the load and rebuild self-worth is by turning again to God. We reaffirm our belief that He accepts and loves us exactly as we are right now.
If at times we see ourselves as limited in some way, we try to remember that in God’s sight we are perfect. God loves us today as much as He did before we became ill. He will continue to love and support us no matter what changes take place in our health and our lives.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
I am the same as ever; capable of loving and worthy of love.
March 10
“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
PSALMS 51:10
You can’t remember the last time you had a meaningful conversation with your father. Your relationship with him has been severely strained for, what, ten years now? Even at family get-togethers you greet each other with barely discernible nods.
Now you are gravely ill. The cancer is very aggressive; you know it, and everyone else in the family does too. And for the first time in years your father is trying to reach out to you. To be completely honest, you have a tormenting ambivalence about the situation. You’re ashamed of the side of you that wants to go on hating him; and you wish you could nurture the side that wants to rebuild the relationship.
So you try to put yourself in your father’s shoes. How heart-wrenching it must be for him to stand by powerlessly as you are being dragged down by this catastrophic illness. And because the relationship is dysfunctional, his emotional pain must be all the more intense.
It’s clear now that you can’t run away and you can’t let it slide by. That’s not who you are or the way you choose to live. So you do your very best to appreciate his concern and accept his love and, at the same time, to be kind and loving to him.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
The loving way is the right way.
March 11
“Look in my face: my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
It seems unlikely that a severely strained relationship will be suddenly transformed in the face of grave illness because one of the people involved decides to reach out and let bygones be bygones. However, illness sometimes brings people together in spite of themselves.
These types of situations are opportunities to put spiritual principles into action, to try to practice unconditional love, for example. In that spirit, we reach out lovingly with no strings attached, without the expectation of a certain response or result.
How do we break through a long-standing barrier for the first time? The best way to express our feelings is simply, slowly, and with great clarity: “I know how sorry you are about my illness and that you care very deeply. Just knowing that brings me a great deal of comfort.”
Following that, we can demonstrate our sincerity through encouraging gestures and actions. If we’re still having trouble rebuilding the relationship, we can enlist a parent, brother, or sister to help make our feelings clear.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Love lives on.
March 12
“Hope, that with honey blends the cup of pain.”
SIR WILLIAM JONES
Because my pain often attacks suddenly, it just as suddenly retreats, and then without warning roars back again; combating it requires as much guesswork as strategy. Even when my guesses are on target, the weapons I select from my pain-control arsenal—medication, meditation, or distraction—rarely eliminate the pain entirely but only temper it. To compound the challenge, what works well one day may not work at all the next.
Yet there’s one approach I can always count on. When pain is raging and resistant, I’m better able to cope when I’m at my best emotionally. Having said that, I must quickly add that emotional strength doesn’t come to me out of the blue. It requires cultivation, a willingness to focus on positive expectations rather than negative projections, and a shift in attitude and outlook from desperation to faith.
I’m healthiest emotionally, and thereby better able to transcend pain, when I have strong positive feelings toward others. The times I have feelings of love and appreciation for my friends and family members are the times I experience the deepest sense of well-being.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Can I focus less on the physical and more on the emotional and spiritual?
March 13
“Comparison, more than reality, makes man happy or wretched.”
THOMAS FULLER
You talk to a woman who had the same kind of cancer that you have. She was diagnosed and treated quickly and three months later her cancer was in remission; no surgery, no radiation. Your hopes soar and so do your expectations. Then you hear about someone else who was diagnosed in January and died in March. Your hopes vanish, your expectations turn wholly negative, and you fear that death is inevitable and imminent.
Obviously, comparisons of this sort are not in our best interest. The single most important factor in dealing with cancer or any other life-threatening illness is that nothing is typical.
Certainly, there is no typical patient; we all have different experiences. In the case of cancer, for example, there are not only many different forms, but also different levels. Symptoms also are different for each of us; so too are the preferred treatments and our responses to those treatments.
To be sure, we can learn a lot by listening to the experiences of others. However, it’s essential that we do so