The Lessons of Illness

This post is being contributed to Nneka’s Season of Gratitude. If you haven’t seen it, spend some time at the site. There are many articles on what gratitude means, personal expressions of thanks, and the importance of gratitude.

Usually when we say we are thankful for something, someone, or some circumstance in our life, the object of gratitude is something that most people would look at and say “I would be grateful for that.” Gratitude isn’t just for the overtly positive experience. It also applies to those things that most people look at and say “Man, that sucks!”

I have Crohn’s Disease. Crohn’s is a strange illness. It usually affects people beginning in their 20s or 30s. The physical cause isn’t known, but it is related to an immune system dysfunction. Your immune system decides something in your gastrointestinal tract is a foreign invader and attacks it, causing inflammation and damage to the GI tract. The most obvious symptoms lead to an intimate acquaintance with the bathroom, body temperature swings, fatigue and weakness, and weight loss. There are several other results of the illness, but these are the most obvious symptoms. There is no known cure, only treatments for the symptoms. First and foremost, I am grateful that I have a physician who is well-acquainted with illness and treats me as a person with an illness, not an illness with a person attached. He is a physician, not a body mechanic. I am thankful I live where the health care is available to treat the physical illness.

I’m hard headed. I was in my 40s when it was diagnosed. By that time I was down to 120lb, constantly cold, and barely able to walk. My wife finally got me to see a doctor, who immediately hospitalized me. That was three or four years ago. The physical symptoms are mostly controlled now, but we still have our moments.

I was old to be diagnosed with Crohn’s. Most people get a sports car at mid-life. I get a disease. Sports cars don’t matter to me, though. People and personal development matter. I’m not going to say I’m grateful I gave myself Crohn’s. If I weren’t so hard headed I don’t think I would have developed it. I am grateful for what it has been teaching me.

Like most people would do, I went through a phase of asking Why me? Unlike many, though, I wasn’t asking why I was being punished or attacked, but what I was trying to learn. You create your own reality, but the you intended here isn’t just the conscious personality, it is the whole you, the inner self as well as the outer personality. The world around us can be interpreted like a dream. It is a symbol system just as much as the symbol systems we have created to communicate with one another. So how do I interpret a disease?

The metaphors we use when we speak are there for a reason. Some of the common metaphors using the GI tract -

• I can’t stomach this.
• I’m feed up with it.
• He doesn’t have any guts.
• That was a kick in the gut!
• I have butterflies in my stomach.

Notice these all involve the emotions. I will be the first to say I have used my mind much more than my heart in living my life. The most obvious result, and the one I am most grateful for, is that I have begun to experience my emotions as much as my intellect. It is a rare movie I see or book I read where I don’t get deeply emotionally involved. How many people can say they cried at Shrek? I can sympathize with what other’s are going through more easily than I used to. I’ve always valued my relationships with my family, but my ties with them have increased and I’ve begun to build ties with people outside my family.

Another result for which I am grateful is I live more in the present and appreciate what is happening now, rathering than thinking so much about the future or the past. They say Crohn’s won’t kill you, but as with any major disease it gives you a taste of your body’s mortality. Disease grabs you by the shoulders, shakes, and tells you in no uncertain terms that you’re only here for a little while, and you had better appreciate it because things do change. Both good and bad, all things pass. Savor them for what they are, and for what they can teach you. I used to get too tied up in details, little things that don’t really matter. I am grateful to be able to begin to learn to not be as concerned about them, and focus on things that do really matter.

Finally is this site. When we die, we take only ourselves. Our legacy on this world is in the other lives we have touched - most immediately in our family, our friends, and our community in the physical world. Many things we believe are important we wish to leave to a wider world. Feeling my mortality gave me the impetus to begin this site. For that I am grateful. I have learned, and relearned, many things since I began it. I have met people I would not have otherwise met. They have touched me and taught me. For that I am grateful.

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