How to deal with ambivalence
July 15, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under The Art of Happiness
I find myself in one of those situations where I hesitate to take on the tasks I need to because I might have to leave on a family emergency. If I call and schedule plumbers to come out for an estimate, it’s going to be an even greater hassle if I have to remember to call them back and cancel while trying to remember where the heck I’ve left the cell phone charger, spare key, etc. So of course I haven’t called the plumbers yet, or done any of the other things on my list that would have ramifications into next week. And yet I still don’t know if the yellow alert will go to red or green.
While family emergencies are thankfully not that frequent, similar situations of ambivalence do crop up from time to time and yet there is precious little advice out there on how best to manage them. If handled correctly, they can be just an eddy that you pass through safely. If not, they can seriously derail making progress on goals and working towards a more balanced life.
- My best advice is to make two lists, one for what would be getting done if there wasn’t ambivalence and one for what might need to be done earlier than normal, like paying the bills. That way you can at least relax about forgetting something critical – even if it doesn’t get done, at least it’s on paper!
- Ask lots of questions in advance so that you can act quickly if you need to later. I’ve already had a nice chat with the airline on how to go about getting bereavement fares and talked over different scenarios with the family attorney. If I’m lucky, those will be ‘wasted’ calls and yet I feel a little more in control for having the information. And nobody on the other end was irritated for the call – people like to help.
- Segregate the worry and the stress over the situation as much as possible – which in part means working on those list items to try and get as much done as you can to mitigate the upheaval. I’ll be doing some writing in advance today, which I can have ready for now or some time in the future when it’s needed.
- Try to balance the comfort food with exercise, walking does help you ‘stay in the now’.
The new paradigm of cancer
July 6, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Other
Tomorrow my dad starts his first round of chemo therapy. This isn’t chemo designed to eliminate the cancer but to manage it, to keep it in check in order to wring a few more years out of life. When I was growing up, cancer was like the Cold War, a low lying but ever present threat, but it too has changed from what it meant twenty years ago. Cancer used to be a battle that was either won or lost within a few years while friends and family rallied around and put as much of their lives on hold as possible to help or worry long distance, knowing that the outcome would be known all too soon. Viewing it as a chronic disease is the new paradigm and it changes almost everything.
What hasn’t changed is that cancer is still a disease that impacts the whole family and even while I’m a player in this particular story, I find it fascinating to see how the family dynamic plays out, shifting and reforming depending on what’s going on and who’s feeling stressed. Some of us pre-process fear and grief while others hold it at bay, some insist on ‘doing’ something just to exert a little control, while others become more passive with advice. After a few years money gets more of a voice in the decision making than it ought to and yet, how can it not?
Family members seem to need the others to see things their way, what ‘should’ be done or not done and even the patient isn’t excused – shouldn’t he/she be more scared? Do they not understand what this means? The thing is, nobody knows for sure what it means. Just as there is now more time and more hope, there is an equal increase in uncertainty. It’s not feasible for people to drop everything for an unknown number of years and yet there are still doctor visits and hospital stays, more tests, more waiting for test results, good days and bad days. Family and neighbors do continue to help but there are also other needs and emergencies happening in the meantime as life goes on. The cancer patient is no longer the ongoing center of attention in the family drama. Now it’s a rotating role and sometimes that baton shifts gracefully and sometimes it doesn’t. We are all getting lessons in living well with ambiguity.
How does one judge quality of life?
June 16, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Other
Yesterday my 18 year old cat, Isabeau, got the official diagnosis of kidney disease. Apparently most cats will get this if they live long enough, the same way most elderly humans have at least some arthritis. The question I have to answer for myself and for her is what is the right balance of intervention, money, and care?
Some will say it’s just a cat and others will say that no effort should be spared. It’s true that she’s not a child (heck, even if she was human she’d be in her 90′s) but we’ve been a team for a very long time. However, I can’t quite see that dragging her to the vet every few weeks would be something she’d vote for. So like many things I’ll be figuring this out one piece at a time and trying to balance all of the above. Right now I’m ok with changing her diet to the special prescription only food – of course I haven’t seen the bill yet… but I’m not ok with giving her IV fluids. I’ve given shots before so it’s not a question of my nerves, just that this cat likes being in control of her movements and her environment, even more than other cats. Forcing her to sit still with an IV every week feels wrong. That’s not a decision I made lightly and I’ve discussed it with the vet but it’s definitely where I separate from the majority of pet owners dealing with this.
The other challenge in all this is my perspective. This isn’t a problem that can be faced, won, and we all move on. It’s something to be managed and I have to be able to switch my attention back to all the other challenges I’ve set myself. The garden needs weeding, I’ve got marketing to get out, jewelry to make, and things to post that are way behind. After a certain point, turning all this over in my mind becomes wasted effort. I should probably take a lesson from my cat; she doesn’t seem worried at all.
