Posts under ‘health’

Standing in line at the pharmacy the other day, I was struck by the headlines I saw on several magazines on display near the register. The headlines screamed, and I paraphrase: “Young Starlets Reveal How They Lose Weight Fast!” and “Tired of Winter Fat? Lose 20 Pounds in One Week!”

Living in a college town, I wondered how many young impressionable female college, high school, junior high (and elementary!) students stood in line at this and other stores, reading those headlines, fervently ruing the few pounds they may have gained over the holidays. How do they compare themselves to those starlets and models? What messages are sinking in, especially into the brains of those school-age girls? What are we doing to girls and women in this culture?

As the media proclaim the dangers of obesity (some calling it an epidemic), we also run the risk of running too far in the other direction, sending our young girls (and some boys) into crazed tailspins of body image dysmorphia. As someone who was a chubby youngster, I myself was frequently on the receiving end of jokes and innuendos about my weight from relatives, family, and strangers alike. The resultant misguided self-talk about my body still reverberates in my mind to this day, and I still suffer the psychic consequences of the frequently cruel statements which so often came my way.

In this media-saturated world where there simply seems to be no escape—especially for the young—it is the responsibility of the society at large to monitor its language and the messages which it feeds to its most vulnerable members. From my point of view, we are failing miserably, and the resulting eating disorders and unrealistic body image suffered by young women across this country are the natural result of our stark collective failure. How can we right this wrong?

Our collective failure is, of course, our collective responsibility to rectify. But how can we do so when the powers of the media—and the very culture itself—thwart us at every turn? God help young women as they face this constant onslaught to which they can never measure up, and if we can’t stem the tide, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Driving home five hours from my parents’ place after a tiring but satisfying weekend, Mary and I discussed quality of life for those with “terminal” illness, and she once again verbalized a term/concept which she had previously coined, namely “The Quality of Life Index” (QOLI). Think of it as a existential Dow Jones Industrial Average with quite personal ramifications.

This index can be utilized in ways both trivial and profound. While cooking dinner, a curious spouse might query the other, “How’s your Quality of Life Index today, dear?” The elicited response to such a general question could be sarcastic, flippant, or thoughtful, and could very well engender quite profound and intimately soul-searching dinner conversation. There is obviously a great deal of room for interpretation by both interlocutor and responder, and wine with dinner may or may not appopriately lubricate the conversation.

Additionally, the QOLI can be something by which we somewhat objectively measure the actual quality of an individual’s day-to-day existence. When examining the life of an individual with cancer, for instance, the QOLI takes on an entirely more dire connotation, and divers questions abound. How does chemotherapy impact quality of life? How are side effects altering lifestyle? Are numerous appointments causing strain on patient or caregiver(s)? Are emotional needs being met? Are their financial, transportation, or nutritional issues? Have end-of-life concerns been addressed? Is pain well-controlled? Does the patient truly wish to undergo treatment or simply wish to receive palliation of symptoms brought on by illness?

Quality of life is often associated with chronic and terminal illness, and is also frequently bandied about when discussing communities, cities, and regions of a state or country. In the face of a cancer diagnosis, for instance, the “community” of the family, friends, and loved ones of the patient are directly impacted by the diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Building upon this thought, one can look at the patient him- or herself as a “community” or country, replete with systems and processes which necessitate maintenance and attention. In the medical field, we often lose sight of these “small” areas as we rush ahead towards cure, flailing madly in the face of death. Do we sometimes forget quality of life as we railroad our patients through the labyrinth of pills and treatments? Do we forget to look them in the eye and ask, “Are you okay with this? Is this working for you?” Their humanity—that aspect of them which cries out for quality of life, quality of connection—can sometimes be left out of the medical equation.

So, in our rush through our personal lives—or through the crush of details filling our days as medical professionals—we must take time to assess, to contemplate, to digest what that elusive quality really is, for ourselves and our patients. If we cannot take the time to examine our own lives, to put our own proverbial houses in order, how can we assist our patients and clients to navigate those rocky and turbulent waters themselves?

With a close family member undergoing intense and life-altering treatment, our “family atom” is itself undergoing a transformational process. Not only are we examining our relationships closely, seeing the places where healing is needed, and mustering our strength for the days and months ahead, we are also looking at our loved one, attempting to ascertain his quality of life, and assist him to determine its trajectory. It is a moment of universal truth, of existential angst, and of all-too-human frailty. We will cut a swath across these well-travelled waters, hopefully leaving outmoded ways of being in our wake, taking on new, more empowered qualities when needed, and in times of relative calm, enjoying the view from the deck.

And you, dear Reader, as you sail along in your craft, floating in those same psycho-emotional-spiritual waters, how would you measure your quality of life and that of your loved ones? What objective number would you assign? What subjective phrase would you use to describe your plight? How would you come to terms with the reality before you? How, pray tell, would you characterize your life? It is a question which begs an answer, yet the answer can change from moment to moment.

This, then, is our charge: to never lose sight of the fact that our quality of life is subject to change, subject to the whims of circumstance, and equally within our grasp to direct to some extent. Let us all grab that rudder and steer for the shore which best represents our aspirations. And may those who have lost hold of that rudder—through illness or other unforseen events—be guided to make the choices which will serve only to improve and augment the quality of existence which is still possible. This is a tall order, yet one for which we can all sincerely pray, in hopes that all suffering individuals beset by the waves of misfortune or illness find their way to the shore wherein they will be embraced and their dreams fulfilled.

Many are the wonders of having a physical body. The scent of flowers, the feeling of grass on the soles of one’s feet, the taste of a favorite food, a glass of wine, the gaze of one’s lover, the feast of looking at art, the crunch of a cucumber. Physical existence offers such breadth of experience, such sensual delight, such a plethora of feelings and sensations building one upon another in a crescendo of stimulation and experience.

And there are the disadvantages, the ways in which the physical becomes burdensome, even painful. A cyst grows on a nerve root in my lower spine, causing incessant contraction of muscles that are like ropes under the physical therapist’s fingers. A malfunction in the junction of my esophagus and stomach allows gastric secretions to bubble up and cause me discomfort. My step-dad’s pancreas harbors an uncontrollably growing mass. My dog’s kidneys failed, and twenty-eight days ago we eased his spirit from his tired old body and placed that beloved furry body in a hole in the earth. The ache which I feel from his absence is like a physical pain, although I know that it is not.

Life offers such contrast, such dichotomy of feeling and experience. Most of us would agree that it is better to have loved and lost then never to have loved, yet in that moment of loss it seems the pain will last forever. In the joyousness of health we leap through life and take our bodies’ wholeness for granted. And when illness strikes, we long for the carefree days before we felt betrayed by that collection of cells we call our own. But is it truly a betrayal, or simply just another way of being in that body, of embodying our own existence?

Of course, we in the health and medical fields see optimal health—physical, mental, spiritual—as the goal of our work, and the desire of all. But there are those who seem to suffer—often from birth—from afflictions and illnesses over which they have no control. And even those individuals find meaning and purpose in life, often in spite of, or perhaps because of, their suffering.

At birth, our parents hope to see ten toes and fingers, an even number of limbs, hear a healthy cry, and observe us engaging the world with that first magical breath that transforms us from an aquatic cosmonaut to a terrestrial creature with feet on the ground and head in the sky. This long process called life offers such opportunity, such room for growth and transformation, and as parents we hold a vision of life without pain and suffering for our offspring.

But this business of having a body brings with it great risks as well. Illness, suffering, pain, loss, malfunction, death—they are all here with us on our journeys around the sun.

Working as I do with the chronically ill, I see some of the worst things that can happen to a body, the afflictions and struggles which can beset a human on his or her trajectory through this earthly existence. I can only conclude that there is great beauty in life—even in death—and that suffering, in its myriad forms, offers its own stark beauty, its own language of learning and growth. Still, I mourn for those who suffer needlessly, who experience torture, rape, brutality, and other unspeakable indignities, and I hope that even those who suffer so, when released from that suffering, know a peace beyond that which is imaginable for us remaining here on this three-dimensional side of the veil. My hope would be that it is so.

I will take the years offered to me and try to use them well. Pain and suffering be damned, there is nothing else to do but take this life in my own two hands and shape it with the force of my will. On this third ball of dust from the star we call The Sun, our lives unfold as so many stories of bodies and minds and hearts in motion. In pleasure or pain, life is what it is, and we simply take each day and live it as our truth, since no truth can be clearer than the one confonting us in the mirror each morning. And when you look in that mirror tomorrow, what, pray tell, will you say?