Lessons in Living, Sickness and Dying.

Shanee Moret Kari Hess

In the journey of life we are faced with many challenges and solutions. Many masters offer guidance which we can analyse, adopt or ignore.

The end of my mother's life had many lessons which deeply influenced my way of thinking from many points of view. Obviously emotional, but also witnessing factual progression of medicine.

She had never smoked, did not drink and spent many years doing charity work. Around the age of 60 she started to have some growths. One behind the right ear, and one inside the lower lip. She had both of these excised and did not think much more about it.

Within a year or so she began to get ill and had severe chest pains which were diagnosed as malignant growths between her lungs and diaphram.

Here is where I first had a shock when the attending physician told her that she had at most, 3 months to live.

Naturally we listened to the doctor as a kind of sage.

3 months. That was really terrifying and cause for every kind of introspection possible.

How did mother take this? How should we react? What should we, or could we, do?

How sure was the doctor's prediction. How did he know?

All unchartered waters for our family.

My father, brother and I were all in the depth of despair. The feeling of impotence and ignorance was overwhelming.

My mother had had a difficult life having lost everything as a young girl after the death of her father, and her mother remarrying a man who squandered their family wealth.

She was the first to react.

"3 months", she said. "How can he know that? There is no way this is going to happen as he predicts", she said with certainty in her voice.

My first lesson was beginning. I was seeing first hand an attitude of stoic strength and nerves of steel. What today I would call neurolinguistics. Telling the mind rather than the mind telling her.

She was the catalyst to all of us becoming more relaxed and accepting of a dire situation.

I vividly remember the doctor visiting my mother and telling her (via what he could acertain through a stethescope), that he could identify the cancer and its advances.

My mother had decided that she was declaring war on this extraneous entity in her body. She decided that every day would be a battle and that she would win the war.

Three months, became, 6, then 12, then 15, then 24 then 30. Finally 37months.

50 years ago we did not know much about what is available at our fingertips now, especially with regards to food and mental attitude.

She and my father were living on the 4th floor apartment in Sanremo Italy.

Each time we visited my mother with some kind words like, "mom we brought you some of your favourite chocolates," she would quip, something like, "I don't want to be too heavy when you have to carry me down the stairs when I die"

"By the way I will be buried in the mountains of Perinaldo and it gets cold, so please bury me with my woolen socks and please take the scenic route to the cemetry so people can enjoy the journey"

She always had a sharp sense of humour and never lost it. She understood that life is finite and that it was up to her how she dealt with the hand given her.

Towards the end the pain became very intense and my father was able to obtain Laudanum, which did somewhat relieve the pain.

She also requested that at the funeral everyone should toast and celebrate life with a drink of champagne.

Lessons. I believe it fundamentally wrong to advise a patient that they have a definite finite date for their end. I believe that hope and faith can have a big influence on the quality of how we live.

The psychological trauma could certainly influence the mind of someone less stoic who would resign to what was predicted.

The sudden shock of the expected, created a deep introspection within me. How useless I felt, impotent to do anything even really understand the complexity of not only the disease but the mental anguish of my mother.

This was the beginning of my reason for looking for ways to prevent dis ease where possible.

We now know that approximately 70% on non communicable dis eases are preventable. Hypertension, Diabetes 2, Cardiovascular disease, and many types of Cancer.

Principle among the common denominators, food, stress, and poor lifestyle choices. Among them sugar.

My curiosity to understand the why and how of things had been ignited.

How do we get sick? Why do we get sick? How can we avoid getting sick? What can we do to prevent dis ease?