JANUARY FEBRUARY 2009 Wellness.indd - Cancer Support ...

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WELLNESS
Terrible Gifts and
Savage Grace
I asked God for strength,
that I might achieve. . .
I was made weak,
that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health,
that I might do greater things. . .
I was given infirmity,
that I might do better things.
I asked for riches,
that I might be happy. . .
I was given poverty,
that I might be wise.
January/February 2009
I asked for power,
that I might have the praise of men. . .
I was given weakness,
that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things,
that I might enjoy life. . .
I was given a life,
that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for,
but everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself,
my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all people, most richly blessed.
Anonymous
www.cancersupportwa.org.au
Despite some noteworthy treatment advances, the predominant approach to fighting
cancer differs little today from 30 years ago, when I received the first of six lifetime
cancer diagnoses.
The disease (and incidentally, the person with the disease) is attacked aggressively in
the hope that wellbeing will emerge for the host from the embers of the assault. It’s an
approach that, while regrettably still necessary and relatively helpful for some, is invasive
in the extreme and often causes more pain and suffering than the disease itself.
But physical trauma is not the only burden people living with cancer must bear. Studies
show that for about half, the emotional suffering is perceived as even worse than the
physical affects of their disease and treatments.
While the physical side-effects of conventional treatments are now better contained by
medicine, the emotional impacts remain, as they did 30 years ago, with the person with
cancer to resolve themselves or more commonly, to grin and bear. My theory on this
conundrum is that medical folk feel however troubling for the person, these challenges
are ultimately inconsequential. After all, they won’t kill them – the cancer might.
Emotional challenges and their effects
Part of the reason for this minimising and patronising attitude is that few medical
practitioners allow themselves to get close enough to their patients to fully appreciate
what it is they must endure, beyond their physical symptoms.
It’s noteworthy that medical people who contract cancer themselves often return to their
roles with a very different attitude, turning their focuses towards the wellbeing of the
person with the illness rather than just the destruction of the disease itself.
Taking stock of the many emotional hardships people living with cancer must contend
with can illustrate how and why they can be debilitating, and why, therefore, they warrant
healing attention. The following are just six common examples:
• They fear for their lives, often for the first time in their lives: They hope for the
best but often fear the worst. The sudden realisation that they were never immortal
after all and that they could actually end in the midst of this experience can have
a devastating impact on their psyche.
• Cancer takes them away from everything they hold familiar: The hospital
environment is a very foreign one to the uninitiated. Familiar places and regimes
are replaced by new, often frightening, painful, uncomfortable and unpleasant
ones. Daily regimens are so completely determined by ‘the system’ that a person
environment • wellness • healing
Healing
cancer’s emotional
suffering
By Phil Kerslake
“The subjective aspect (of illness) that is the experience of the sick
person is by definition un-measurable; so is regarded as somehow
less real…” Jeff Kane MD, US author of ‘How to heal’.