How to cope with chronic illnesses

Zimbabwe bass fisherwoman for the year 2006 to 2010.
She used to say to me: “Visualise the size of fish you want to catch, believe with your mind that you are going to catch it, expend your energy towards your goal and you will surely catch what you desire.’’
She was a very positive individual, who always expected good things to happen in the dam.
However, her performance nose-dived in 2011 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The cancer was only detected when it was at an advanced stage. As a result, one of her breasts had to be removed.
This was a traumatic experience for her and our team. She confided in me how she was feeling empty and incomplete without one part of her body.
She could not imagine how she was going to appear with only one breast. Her pride as a woman vanished overnight.
She was also scared of how the community will react to her deformity. To her the future did not appear bright with her deformity.
Before this unfortunate event, I did not understand the power of our emotional attachment to our limbs and other body parts.
Through Sheila I began to understand the fear, the loss of control, the sense of bereavement at the loss of a vital part of her body.
In addition, Shiela suffered the physical and emotional pain when her relationships were thrown into turmoil.
To cut a long story short, after the operation, her husband deserted her. She got into serious depression and failed to fight the chronic disease.  Eventually she died. She never returned to her home after the operation.
Chronic diseases such as cancer, osteoporosis and coronary heart diseases, Ebola, HIV and Aids evoke a common fear in all of us.
These diseases are a fact of life for millions of people even in Zimbabwe.  Some of these diseases can be inherited such as hereditary breast cancer.
Some can be acquired through exposure to carcinogens in the environment such as radiation, chemical pollution, infectious organisms and infected blood.
Others are caused by lifestyle factors such as smoking, inactivity and physical contact with infected people.
Some are caused by excessive consumption of “fast foods” that are characterised by high fat and calorie content and a lack of fresh fruits, vegetables, fibre and whole grain.
Though some of the causes of these chronic illnesses can be avoided while others are beyond people’s immediate control.
These chronic diseases affect relationships, work, family and the meaning people give to their bodies.
Methods of managing chronic
illnesses and early retirement
The most common method used by companies to manage chronic illnesses is to give affected employees early retirement packages.
Employees can voluntarily apply for early retirement if there are satisfactory medical reports, which certify that the employee is not medically fit to carry out his or her duties.
Alternatively, the company can ask the employee to retire if they have enough medical grounds to support that the affected employee is no longer fit to continue performing their tasks.
The Labour Act (Chapter 28,01) specifies that the employee can terminate the employment of the employee subject to (4) during any one year period of service, the period or aggregate periods of sick leave exceed (a) 90 days sick leave on full pay or (b) 180 days on full and half pay.
However, the employee must be given time to defend themself before dismissal and there must be a full medical report to support the termination.
As much as companies do not want to involve themselves in individual personal circumstances, these chronic diseases at times affect employees who hold companies’ organisational memory.
Key individuals are difficult to replace immediately which calls for companies to focus at supporting individuals with chronic illness.
Participatory approach
Most patients who succeed in fighting these chronic illnesses actively play a part in finding solutions for their medical challenges.
These are known as “participatory patients”. They actively research on the medical journals or through the internet.
They actively participate during the time when the doctors will be prescribing solutions for their conditions.
Companies can also play a part by investigating where their employee could get the best medical relief from and advise accordingly.
Solutions normally avail themselves to people who seek them. The family can complement individual and company’s efforts by providing love or financial, spiritual and moral support.
It is sad to note that Sheila had to endure her last days on earth alone after her husband had abandoned her.
The depression that arises out of loneliness and frustration can speed up the death of the affected individual.
Counselling affected employees
At times affected employees end up suffering after comparing notes with people who are suffering from similar terminal diseases.
Exchanging notes is advisable provided the affected individual is made to understand that human bodies respond differently to the same medical interventions.
Therefore, they do not need to be frustrated when they observe that others are responding well to treatment, while their own progress appears to be slow.
On the other hand, chronic illnesses can cause physical deformity. Sheila lost her precious left breast.
Some friends of mine lost legs, hands and other important limbs. Under such circumstances people who lose their precious body parts must be counselled to accept their new physical disposition.
Mind Management
Most people who are diagnosed to be suffering from terminal illnesses give up early.
The preoccupation of these people’s minds shifts from future progress expectations to death.
Their minds help to speed up the death process. The preoccupation with death tends to block any exciting thoughts about the future such as acquiring new knowledge, going for a vacation, having a new child, and tasting new food.
People with terminal illnesses need to manage their minds to understand that there are two aspects in every living organism, that is, it is either living or dead.
Therefore, if one is alive, he or she must do what the living people do. If one is under pain, and he or she must take the medication and carry on with life.
They are encouraged to try some creative work or anything that lifts them up. One can try to be productive under those torturous conditions.
The brains behind Zimbabwe’s liberation war effectively strategised the execution of liberation war while in prison or under restrictive conditions.
The affected people must try to live normally unless it will be physical and mentally prohibitive to do so.
If one finally succumbs to death that’s when one is expected to focus on death.
One commentator said that we are “all terminally ill” and degenerating towards death from the time we were born.
The purpose of the living is not to preoccupy oneself with death but to add value by creating a better world to live in.
People living with terminal illnesses or not must continually seek ways of creating and regenerating this world for the good of mankind before they are finally taken to their final resting place.
The writer is a managing consultant at CLC Training International. E-mail [email protected].