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[shadesong]

Today I finished Atul Gawande's latest book, Being Mortal. I love Gawande's work - he has a stunning compassion about him, in the way he writes about medicine. I first heard about the new book via this excerpt, which is worth reading to begin with

Comments

[farceur_rouge]

Love to you. And I am, as always, inspired by your willingness to put this out there, as a map for the rest of us, "markers and guides and comfort and warning."

[phantom_wolfboy]

Funny how it always comes down to stories with you, eh?

[shadesong]

Indeed. <3

[thewronghands]

I read "Better" but I haven't read "Being Mortal"; I'll have to give that a look, thanks! Dr. Gawande recently spoke in Seattle... I wanted to go, but unfortuntately work ate me. Like yourself, though, I appreciate the compassion and grace that he brings to these discussions.

The weird thing for me about chronic illness is... everyone has a finite amount of time left, but most of us don't think about it that way. (I had to stare it down when I was 15 and I've been living with it ever since. I eventually ended up dealing with it by getting a tea ceremony scroll about death tattooed on my back, and going on with my life.) Denial is powerful and popular.

Best of luck/cheering/pompoms to your living with grace. [hugs]

[shadesong]

Yeah. I had to confront it with the epilepsy diagnosis, so I'm accustomed to "this is probably what will kill me, but also, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow?"

I actually went straight to bargaining on the way home from the doctor, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Denial was never an option. :/ But walking home I was like "Okay, when I go, can it be a seizure instead of an aortic dissection? So it doesn't hurt? So I won't know what's happening?"

But. Y'know. Bus. Tomorrow. Could happen.

[thewronghands]

Haha, yeah, "Bus. Tomorrow. Could happen." is there for me too. I think I swung the other way... as I get older, one of the strange things for me is the idea that what if against all odds I *do* live to be 90 or something? I spent so long thinking that I would never make it to retirement, and now that I'm closer, oh, huh, I need to change my thinking just in case. So I was kinda planning around the bus, and feel like that was reasonable given what I knew at the time, but as I have had a series of non-bus days/years since, now feel like I should also give more consideration to the possibility that I might get old. So it loops around... the young often don't plan for aging because they feel immortal, I didn't plan as well as I might have because I felt extremely mortal. Now with an uncertain lease, huh, maybe I should do that. So I feel you.

[gows]

as I get older, one of the strange things for me is the idea that what if against all odds I *do* live to be 90 or something? I spent so long thinking that I would never make it to retirement, and now that I'm closer, oh, huh, I need to change my thinking just in case. . . . I didn't plan as well as I might have because I felt extremely mortal.

Yes, this. I was dying and dying and dying, and then all of a sudden I stopped dying, and I threw all my energy into living what others have termed a "juicy" life. I feel like I went supernova in response to spending so much time being sick, and now all of a sudden I'm nearly 41 and my parents are aging and I need to talk with them and plan my wills and retirement and all of that.

But I'm still not afraid of dying.

[amigone]

It's fascinating how diagnoses like these can affect how you see things. I know from my experience, I did not handle things gracefully at first, but I am now more peaceful (working in hospice care didn't help much at first, but now I have a deeper understanding with my patients who have scary prognoses).

I'm lucky in that my disease may never affect me further, but unlucky in that it could come back as stealthily as it did at first, and cause havoc.

I guess none of us ever know how much time we have left. But when things come to sneak that time away and we are aware of them, we can make the days count more mindfully than if we all assumed we would die at 80.

[hammercock]

Meep. The geek in me is really curious about such things, but obviously only inasmuch as you're willing to share. I am hoping for the best possible ending for your story.

As a somewhat borderline hypochondriac, I usually feel like more data is better. More data means more knowledge for evaluating the situation at hand, and forming a plan. Except when it becomes temporarily paralyzing, that is, in those first deer-in-headlights days. Still, onward and upward, for as long as you can. *hug*

[shadesong]

Yep. The imaging will help my state of mind, I think, even if results are not good.