Journalist Jane Phare decided to practice gratitude after a series of tough health setbacks.
After three operations, two hospitals and one death sentence, Jane Phare concentrates on the art of being grateful.
The death sentence was delivered gently, using words that didn’t include the words “death” or “die.”
It wasn’t my death sentence, not yet. But I heard every word from behind those grey-and-mustard curtains that staff at Auckland Hospital swish around your bed, tricking you into thinking everything they’re about to tell you is private. News flash. The curtains are not soundproof. They do not afford anyone privacy or dignity at our most vulnerable moments.
And so we share the good news – and the bad – and often our full name and date of birth with everyone else in the ward.
I’m afraid, the doctor told the woman in the bed opposite, it’s not what we thought. Her horrible abdominal pains were not caused by appendicitis or diverticulitis, or a bowel blockage. We cannot fix this with an operation, he said. It was cancer; melanoma that had metastasized and invaded all parts of her body, including her stomach.
She would be referred to oncology for “palliative care”, he said gently. I remember the effect those two words had when a doctor told us my mother’s bowel cancer had spread. I remember the desperate, clutching panic when it dawned on me that there was no hope of a cure, no treatment that would make much of a difference to her life.
So I sat grieving for that family from behind my curtain. I, too, was facing an uncertain future after a breast cancer diagnosis, for the second time. I was recovering from a mastectomy in Ascot Hospital and two subsequent “emergency” operations to stop internal bleeding. The non-stop pain was indescribable – like a third-degree burn mixed with a severe graze is as close as I can describe it.
I was feeling sorry for myself. I’d been through this nine years ago – a mastectomy and the sickening news that the cancer had spread to a node, triggering years of life-sapping treatment to prolong my life - chemotherapy, radiation, Herceptin and Tamoxifen. Sickness, baldness, exhaustion that eventually gave way to listlessness.
Now I was waiting for the results of the node biopsy. Had the cancer spread? If so, could I face more ghastly chemotherapy?
I was angry with my body, indignant that it had let me down. Ten years ago I was the healthy, if ageing, mother of a boisterous 7-year-old. Then came a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, breast cancer and mysterious ongoing esophageal pain.
Last year I suddenly couldn’t read my computer screen. Macular holes had developed in both eyes, leaving me unable to see clearly, drive, read or work. And then shortly after, breast cancer again. Really?
It would have been easy to become resentful and depressed. I could be excused for moping. But those doctor’s words from behind the curtain drew me up short.
Pull yourself together, practice gratitude, everyone’s talking about it online. There’s got to be something in it.
So let’s go through the list. Yes, an MS diagnosis isn’t ideal and I’m uneasy about living with a chronic, progressive disease. But so far it’s not too bad. I am grateful that medical research has come up with medications that appear to be holding my MS at bay. And there are worse diagnoses to face.
Back in the 80s I visited former Herald TV reporter Robin Turkel in a hospice, slowly dying from the cruelly debilitating motor neuron disease. I am grateful my diagnosis was not that. My blindness was temporary, partially improved by two complex eye operations after which I had to lie face down for 48 hours each time. I am grateful that my macular holes did not happen 35 years ago when surgery to correct the ailment had not yet been developed. My eyesight is not what it was but good enough to read, drive and write.
And yes, breast cancer twice, that’s a bit of a bummer. But I’m alive; lots of other women aren’t.
And then there was the MRI scan that nearly went horribly wrong. Unbeknown to me or, apparently, the radiologist, my temporary breast expander contained ferrous metal in the “port”. It’s there so doctors can judge, using a magnet, where to stick the needle in to inject more saline fluid to expand the breast cavity, ready for a permanent silicone implant to be inserted.
As I slid into the MRI, ear muffs on and the radio playing easy listening, my newly operated on left breast suddenly lurched skyward, pulled up by the magnetic field. Bizarre. It hurt like hell and I yelled.
But as it turned out, no harm was done. An ultrasound confirmed that the expander was still in place. Lucky, the specialist said, looking at other cases online. One woman had the breast expander pulled right out of her breast during an MRI. I’m grateful that wasn’t me.
It is not difficult to feel grateful once you get the hang of it. I have a growing list now:
How can you not be grateful to them? They are medical professionals, comforters, counsellors, diplomats rolled into one. Those eight hours in ED waiting for surgery gave me enough material for a mockumentary. Cue to the man in the next cubicle who demanded oxygen to help him “relax”; another played the call to prayer so loudly nurses couldn’t hear what their patients were saying.
Someone else’s phone kept playing La Marseillaise all the way through; maybe they were away having an x-ray. An elderly woman repeatedly grasped the arm of any doctor or nurse who strayed behind her curtain to tell them was NO WAY she was staying in hospital overnight, and there was NO WAY she was going into a rest home. And all the reasons why not.
Others tell their life stories, break wind, complain. One family squeezed into a patient’s curtained cubicle and slurped their way through what sounded and smelt like a $200 McDonald’s order, with sides, while we lay in our nil-by-mouth misery.
Up in theatre, waiting our turn, an American man kept calling to a gentle Filipino nurse. “Jill! Jill! Let’s rock n’ roll!” because he was sick of waiting. She patiently answered his intrusive questions about where she was from, how long she’d been in New Zealand and whether all her sisters were nurses. I am grateful she didn’t slap him. It might have delayed proceedings.
Now, recovered and back at work, when I forget to feel grateful – which I do almost daily - I think back to that grieving family behind the curtain and it pulls me up short.
I couldn’t see the woman’s face, nor the family sitting around her bed. Their tears took a while to come. After the doctor left, they talked quietly in practical tones. Who would look after her when the time grew near? One son lived far away. How would they tell her beloved grandchildren and when? How would they tell an estranged daughter?
The woman wanted to live long enough to witness the birth of a new grandchild and attend an upcoming family celebration. She was gauging her remaining time in weeks, not months. But she didn’t want to linger on. “I can’t live like this,” she said, “I’m in such terrible pain.”
“I know mum,” her son sobbed as the tears finally came. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to be strong.” Maybe he was holding her hand, and maybe his wife was stroking her husband’s back as he cried. I cried too. Hard not to.
After the family left, the woman lay groaning quietly. A nurse asked her, “How is your pain on a scale of one to 10?”
“Fifteen,” she whispered.
My pathology results finally came through two weeks later. The cancer had not spread this time. The nodes were clear. No further treatment needed, apart from checkups. I am grateful, so very grateful.
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