Stage 4 cancer is like a gut punch from the Universe. We humans live as if immortal, constantly fingering future hopes and dreams, but news of "death". evaporates immortality into emptiness and separation. Shock and numbness persist for weeks while the patient compliantly steps through a painful schedule of surgeries, chemo, blood draws, scans etc. Feeling competent and in control erodes into feeling like a lab rat. Medial personnel are polite but flat faced, holding distance from the "dead". Some technicians make the unwitting mistake of asking "How are you today?", the response ... a polite lie or flood of tears, then silence. Never does a doctor say "dead" or "dying", instead they focus on the mechanics of treatment, chemo, which doesn't heal or save those with Stage 4 - hello flat face. I was advised that the treatment was only "palliative" ...do patients know what that means? In my case, treatment was not palliative, instead my symptoms and quality of life worsened. I wonder how many Stage 4 patients actually understand their prognosis and feel empowered to make personally meaningful choices? Oncologists don't invite the discussion, they are chemo purveyors giving flat-faced care to numb lab rats, this is the standard of care. Chemo can make you very sick, chemo can kill you, and it is used with nearly all patients to extend life for just a handful of months.
Doctors don't assist with discussing options, friends pray and root for a miracle, needing you back in the immortality club.
Why isn't the choice to de-stress, slow down and intentionally use the rest of good health to hug, laugh and say "goodbye" a viable and supported choice? Isn't letting go and reducing stress powerful medicine anyway, more likely to open the door for a miracle healing? Why can't hospice start NOW, not oxygen or morphine, but some peaceful support for patient and family choices would be invaluable.
Ponder with me now and inevitably for yourself later: Why are we so afraid and completely avoidant of death? I don't think people realize that dying people are still people, with important choices to make. What will it take for us to become expert at supporting and honoring the dying process in an "alive" and welcoming way? Will we forever push the terminally diagnosed through this unexamined death march simply because we are afraid?
Doctors don't assist with discussing options, friends pray and root for a miracle, needing you back in the immortality club.
Why isn't the choice to de-stress, slow down and intentionally use the rest of good health to hug, laugh and say "goodbye" a viable and supported choice? Isn't letting go and reducing stress powerful medicine anyway, more likely to open the door for a miracle healing? Why can't hospice start NOW, not oxygen or morphine, but some peaceful support for patient and family choices would be invaluable.
Ponder with me now and inevitably for yourself later: Why are we so afraid and completely avoidant of death? I don't think people realize that dying people are still people, with important choices to make. What will it take for us to become expert at supporting and honoring the dying process in an "alive" and welcoming way? Will we forever push the terminally diagnosed through this unexamined death march simply because we are afraid?