The Second Remembrance

The Second Remembrance: I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

Ill-health is part of life—one that challenges our illusions of control, inviting us into deeper acceptance, compassion, and understanding.

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What, exactly, is “ill-health”?

Something in the body is not functioning as it should. The result may be pain, nausea, fatigue, or an inability to perform basic functions such as walking, breathing, digesting, or eliminating. Ill-health may or may not take the form of a disease like diabetes, multiple sclerosis, or cancer, but it causes a sense of dis-ease.

Why does ill-health happen? The causes may be many, and are often beyond my control: genetics, environment, toxic exposure, or accident. Or, as discussed in the previous post, my body may be wearing out with age. Sometimes there is no discernible cause for ill-health. For those of us used to seeking answers at the tip of our fingers, this can be the most disturbing kind of dis-ease. Though we like to think that if we use our bodies well and carefully, we can avoid ill-health, discipline and preventative action can only take us so far, they do not create an impervious protective shield.

Why do we resist ill-health? We are a control-prone culture. Lack of control can provoke reactions from mild discomfort to intense fear, so we collude with one another to perpetuate the illusion of control. Faced with loss of control over our bodies, we will go to almost any length to reassert it.

Modern Western medicine focuses on control: identify the cause, intervene, cure if possible, and if not, manage symptoms. We tend to consider health our birthright, even as we refuse to recognize health care as a basic human right.  When a cure is possible, we pursue it intensely, sometimes indiscriminately, if we have the financial means. If a cure is not possible, or we can’t afford it, we rebel and rail against our misfortune.  Only as a last resort, we reluctantly accept our ill-health and turn to palliative care—to relieve instead of fix.

I’ve been fortunate. None of my conditions of ill-health is immediately life-threatening, and most are at least partially treatable. Still, since my mid-forties, ill-health has been my reality, and I, too, have struggled before reaching a measure of acceptance.  I inherited Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) from my mother. Peripheral neuropathy followed on its heels, producing numbness, tingling, and pain in my hands and feet. A couple of years ago, a cardiologist informed me I have lived with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy all my life, but I only recently became symptomatic, experiencing shortness of breath, chest tightness, pain, and fatigue.  I’ve dipped my toe into cancer, skin cancer to be exact, with a melanoma in situ on the right side of my face and squamous cell cancer on my arm. My family has a history of colon and pancreatic cancer, so I have some anxiety about developing these. Add the chronic conditions: GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease), osteoporosis, and sleep apnea, and the picture of my ill-health is complete. Naming these conditions is, in a roundabout way, part of my attempt to both control and accept them.

I‘ve patched together my own brand of palliative care, combining medications, diet, and exercise. These interventions help me exert as much control as possible; the rest I must accept, because I am of the nature to have ill-health, and more of it as I age.  

But does ill-health bring only negatives and losses, or does it, like aging, also offer opportunities and graces?  What can I learn from ill-health? Are there any up sides?  

At a basic level, ill-health may provide an opportunity to loosen control and soften into self-compassion and empathy with others who share my conditions. It may enable me to touch into my vulnerability, reveal interdependence, and offer a chance to receive care from others.  Or, with a more active approach, I can study my condition, support research financially, or participate in trials that may lead to a treatment or a cure. In this way, I may help others who share my form of ill-health.

I live in a retirement community where most of us are seventy or older. We are all experiencing some form of ill-health, and we are famous for reciting our ailments and their treatments; it’s one of our common pastimes. Even this can have its benefits. Sometimes my ill-health forges a bond with others—an understanding that can, in itself, be palliative.

The Second Remembrance is not only a caution, but also a summons. Like everything else, ill-health may provide an occasion for growth and transformation. Is this not what the Five Remembrances as a whole teach us? What cannot be avoided can be met with curiosity, awareness, acceptance, and perhaps even wonder. So, we face into ill-health, looking for the opening along with the closing, looking for the way through rather than the way out. There is no escape, but there may be a path, otherwise overlooked, toward unanticipated freedom and unexpected meaning.

Before closing this brief essay on the second of the Five Remembrances, let me remind you that my reflections arise, not from formal study, but from meditation and observation—from my attempt to grapple with the choice to intervene or accept, to discern whether to flow with or swim against the inescapable tide.

Questions for Reflection: Is ill-health as inevitable as aging and death? How do I meet ill-health—with resistance, acceptance, or both?  Do I seek to escape ill-health more than aging?  Why?