A Woman's Guide to Living With Heart Disease by Carolyn Thomas & Martha Gulati

Author:Carolyn Thomas & Martha Gulati
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Health & Fitness, General, Women's Health, Diseases, Heart, Medical, Public Health
Publisher: JHU Press
Published: 2017-11-28T01:07:36.772000+00:00

There Is No Fair Fairy in Life

In the year 2000, I started working in the field of hospice palliative care. That career experience was more educational than any university course I’ve ever taken, any book I’ve ever read, or any professional development training I’ve shelled out cash for. And the biggest lesson I learned over those years in end-of-life care stemmed from one simple truism:

There is no Fair Fairy in life.

In end-of-life care, we see unfair things happening day in and day out. Pretty soon, we learn that life is indeed not fair. Full stop. End of discussion.

I was reminded every day just how true this was when, for example, we had a 19-year-old admitted to our inpatient unit, dying of ovarian cancer. Or a mother in her early thirties leaving two toddlers and a distraught young husband behind. Or when we watched parents of any age grieving the death of their child, because we all know that it’s just not right for parents to outlive their children.

Yet in the ongoing day-to-day drama that is Real Life—for those of us diagnosed with a chronic and progressive illness like heart disease, for example—we often want to wail about the unfairness of it all. In the early days post-diagnosis, I used to sometimes feel like an outraged toddler comparing the larger size of my sister’s piece of cake with my own:

Why me?

I don’t deserve this!

Why did this have to happen?

Many of us need to discover the secret of being able to move from wailing to acceptance, when what we really want to do is whine about the inherent unfairness of our plight.

Here’s how Dr. Edward Creagan at Mayo Clinic shares his take on this issue. He warns us that there are at least three fundamental truths that cannot be ignored if we really want to move forward toward any semblance of serenity and well-being in life, no matter what horrible health crises have struck us en route. These fundamentals include:

Life is not fair. The good people do not always win. And sometimes the best intentions are misguided or misinterpreted. Recognize your limitations—and those of others—and then move forward as best you can.

You are responsible for your actions. Sure, you can complain. You can be critical, but at the end of the day, the buck stops with you.

The past is over. The future is not yet here. So today—this moment, this place in time—is all there is. If you continually focus on the rearview mirror of life, if you take your eyes off the road ahead, chances are slim that you will safely reach your destination.13

Here’s another tip: embracing attitude shifts like these must be a self-imposed act. They’re not something you can shove into the faces of other people by waving in front of them a copy of Dr. Creagan’s handy list of fundamentals.

When life has pummeled us into the peat, we also need time, self-compassion and perspective (along with those early bouts of weeping, wailing, and feeling very, very sorry for ourselves) until we finally feel ready to stop blaming that Fair Fairy.

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