I have been dealing with illness and its manifestations since I was a teenager, and I think that gives me a very healthy respect for the things in life we can't control.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Trying to suppress or eradicate symptoms on the physical level can be extremely important, but there's more to healing than that; dealing with psychological, emotional and spiritual issues involved in treating sickness is equally important.
I think illness is a family journey, no matter what the outcome. Everybody has to be allowed to process it and mourn and deal with it in their own way.
People that go through serious illness - you can either go one way or the other. You can either become despondent about it all. Or it kind of rejuvenates you, makes you focus on what's important.
Realize that illness and other temporal setbacks often come to us from the hand of God our Lord, and are sent to help us know ourselves better, to free ourselves of the love of created things, and to reflect on the brevity of this life and, thus, to prepare ourselves for the life which is without end.
My illness has taught me something about the nature of humanity, love, brotherhood and relationships that I never understood, and probably never would have. So, from that standpoint, there is some truth and good in everything.
You become aware of an illness by understanding yourself and understanding the meaning that that illness has in your own life, symbolically and, more importantly, quite literally.
You go into the disease as one person and come out of it as a different person. It has changed my perspective on everything. Things that used to upset me no longer do.
Thinking of disease constantly will intensify it. Feel always 'I am healthily in body and mind'.
Please believe that I do this because I am convinced that my illness cannot be helped for any length of time and I cannot bear to be a burden on anyone any longer.
Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.