Process of Dying:
As stated by my previous blog posts, I believe the process of dying to be broken up in to stages. I believe there is the initial reaction to being diagnosed with what will be leading you on your journey to death, followed by your mental/physical coping, and finally with the acceptance of your fate. Demonstrating an example of an initial reaction to a diagnosis, is a quote from "Tuesdays With Morrie" by Mitch Albom: (Page 8) "Shouldn't the world stop? Don't they know what has happened to me?", were the immediate words of Morrie after his diagnosis with Lou Gehrig's disease. This quote demonstrates how the process of dying produces a discovery of the world around you, the world continues as you start to die, and the realization that you must live your life on your own terms and not everyone Else's, occurs.
Continuing on my take of the "stages of dying", the second and third stages (mental/physical coping & acceptance of your fate) can also be demonstrated by a quote from "Tuesdays With Morrie" by Mitch Albom. (Page 81) Morrie says "Yes. But there's a better approach. To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you're living." Morrie demonstrates his understanding of the fact that he will die, and has a coping method of "being more involved" as he said.
Isolation:
In our society, the dying, ill and elder people are almost always isolated. Whether or not, it's for their own good or not. The sick or dying are avoided because of fear of "contagious death" and the elderly have the wonderful privilege of being a part of an industrial nightmarish atrocity, nursing homes. Our society as whole, has learned to send the sick to a doctors or emergency room, and to send the elderly to a nursing home or a hospice, or give them special care. Due to this unintentional isolation, we have learned to treat the sick and dying different than the socially normal. Nursing homes in particular, demonstrate isolation based on health. Nursing homes are viewed by so many as a good place for elders to be treated or to die in, yet the way they are all housed together, and isolated are looked down upon. The fondness of nursing home is demonstrated well by the quote of a nursing home resident herself: "How to be sick" by Toni Bernhard, (Page 10) " If one is to be sick and alone, this is as good a place as any".
Being sick:
Based on my personal experience with being sick, I believe that being sick is taken for granted and underestimated by most. When I experience a common cold, I get annoyed, want it to go away, and treat it based on my symptoms. However; What if someone with an immune system that is compromised has the very same cold as me? What if my same innocent, annoying cold was a life threatening, unbearable virus to someone else? Sickness isn't fully respected nor understood for most people, we go about being sick as something that is normal and will go away, because of this, we aren't prepared for when people around us are terminally ill.
When asked by me, My grandmother said, "I think being sick affects you and everyone around you, mentally, physically, and spiritually" In conjunction with my grandmother's opinion, I believe that not only do the fatal diseases affect you on a mental, physical, and spiritual level but also the small inconvenient colds, infections,etc. Sickness shouldn't be judged differently according to the severity of the condition, because it that exact same underestimation that leads to our society being unprepared to handling being sick or terminally ill.
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