Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The Gift of Illness

Life has a few lessons for all of us. For those living with a chronic illness some of the lessons are hard, but some are also gifts.

HIV forces you to stop what you are doing, to reflect and take stock of your life and the factors that led up to this moment. There are deep emotions to deal with; the guilt, the anger, the disbelief and the shame. But, once you move on from that, the opportunities open up to you.

Some people go through their life enjoying all the excesses of it and all the joys. But with most people it catches up with you - the youthful excesses, late nights, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll take their toll on the body. The body becomes silently ill with heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obstructive lung disease. All these are disease of lifestyle. Often, the first sign of a problem is when the person is struck down by a stroke or a heart attack. These are debilitating if not fatal events earned through years and years of abuse of the body.

So, how is this an opportunity you may ask? Well, if you know your status and you are positive, then you are in a position to not only correct and improve your health, but you are in a position to become healthier than ever before. And I mean that. Your new found awareness of your body and the stress that it is under, gives you the chance to take back the control of your body that you previously took for granted and in so doing, abdicated responsibility for.

Get informed, emower yourself. Find out about your illness and what you can do about it. If you are in the early stages of illness and your CD4 is still high, then great, get proactive and make the changes that you need to stay healthy for longer. Start exercising, find out about supplements and nutrition, go to yoga, learn to meditate, learn to manage your stress better, quit smoking, cut down on alcohol. Do all the things that will benefit not only your chronic illness, but will take you on the road to optimum health.

If you are at a low CD4 or are ill and need ARV treatment, get proactive about this too - make sure you have a good healthcare provider that you can talk to and be honest with. Get hold of your medical aid and register on their HIV program, get counselling from them. Read up, watch tv, talk to others, use the internet, just get yourself aware of all your options. And do all the same above to fix your lifestyle so that it is supportive of your health and not destructive.

It is also a wake up call to order your finances and policies. If your fear is that you will die before your children are grown up, then dont hide from this fear, do something about it. Go and take out a funeral policy and start saving money, or investigate the life policy otpions out there for HIV positive people. Make a plan for your children or spouse so that if the worst comes to the worst, then you leave your family with financial security and a funeral that is paid for.

Too many people live their lives unconsciously. Unconscious of their effects on the environment, blissfully unaware of the assault they are making on their physical being. Chronic illness gives you the gift of awareness, the ability to become present in the moment and to appreciate your strengths and weaknesses. It is the chance to lead a life of consciousness that can go beyond your own body's health, but can impact on every aspect of your life.

Try to find the blessings in your disease and the capacity to treasure moments more preciously, because you are aware how fragile life is. One of my favourite quotes is from the movie Shadowlands. A woman is dying of cancer, and says to her lover:

'The pain is part of the happiness then,
The happpiness is part of the pain then.'