I started off my interview with the question “what is your first reaction when you are sick? Both my parents seemed intent on going to lie down and separating themselves from others in order to get better. It seems that isolation is in the root of our minds; we believe that when we are sick, we need to be alone, just as our society believes that any one who is sick should be sent to the hospital – separated. Eventually we began talking about knowing someone who is or was fatally ill. They both spoke of personal experiences, especially describing the feelings involved in interacting with the person. It seemed that they were all about being honest with the person, that there was no point in acting like they were any different, because it only made the person feel worse. Funny, considering the fact that when my parents are sick they said they try to be alone, isolate themselves, but when someone they love is sick, they do not want them to feel isolated at all.
My father also mentioned that it seemed unfair that the person had to go through a fatal illness, that sometimes it is not their fault; it is simply in their blood. He also stated that death does not always have to be sad thing; sometimes someone puts up a strong battle and it is admirable. They lived for as long and as well as they could until they were taken over by disease. Society on the other hand tends to focus on the negatives, the fact that not only a life is ceasing to exist, but also classifies the topic as a complete taboo. My grandfather for example has or had prostate cancer; he avoids the subject at all costs, even to the point where we can only assume his treatment has been successful. I myself have never really had any experience with someone who is fatally ill; I cannot exactly say what I would do. I hope though, that I would be able to be honest with the person and make them feel as comfortable as possible.
As my father said, sometimes battles can be quite admirable, a reason to respect the death of a person. When I asked my mother if she would consider a holistic method, she said yes, definitely. This is partly due to the fact that my mother knows people who have had the type of admirable story that my father was referencing, gained through holistic methods. My aunt, before I was born, was extremely sick with skin cancer. Her doctor said to her that the medicine she could give her would do 20% of the work – of the healing, but that it was up to my aunt to do the rest. The doctor had her going to therapy in order to help her maintain a positive attitude and avoid depression. In addition, my aunt took vitamins everyday and through these tactics ended up defeating the cancer. While she did have prescribed medication, a lot of her healing ended up being through mental counseling. My father on the other hand mentioned my mother’s chiropractor and said, “I just think he’s a wacky guy.” While he did note that he would try a holistic method, he does not seem to weigh in on this idea as heavily as my mother. I feel confident saying that my father takes the more traditional route in relying on the typical white-coated doctor. But then again when I asked him which doctor he trusts the most out of the one’s he has had so far, none came to mind.
I myself was at my mother’s chiropractor over the summer because I had not been feeling all that great. He pushed into my stomach, had me raise my arm and hold it while he tried to push it down. My arm was easily defeated by his strength, which apparently clued him in to exactly what was wrong with me. I had a physical with my regular doctor the next day as I had just returned from Germany and I asked her opinion of my problem. She laughed when I mentioned that I had been to a chiropractor the day before. The funny thing is, they both ended up giving me the same advice, coming from two completely different perspectives. I ended up taking the supplements that the chiropractor had prescribed and was already feeling better within a day. In terms of medicine I do feel like I identify a bit more with my mother as I do put a little more faith in holistic methods than maybe my father would.
While my father does not hold quite as much respect for the holistic methods, both he and my mother try to avoid medication at all costs. My mother feels like medication is over prescribed these days, that people are taking medicine for things that could probably heal on their own. In agreement, my father also added that people seemed dependent on the drugs, using them as an excuse to live an unhealthy lifestyle. I believe a lot of this attitude comes from observations of their parents. Alice, my mother’s mother is suffering from old age – she is forgetting things, does not always feel in best shape. The doctors prescribed her over 10 different medicines, which my mother felt was a little much. She took it upon herself to research the drugs, to at least know what her mother was becoming so dependent on. It turns out, half of the medications were simply duplicates of the others. My mother, infuriated, spoke to the doctors with her findings as evidence and ended up convincing them to take my grandmother off a majority of the drugs. You would imagine that my grandmother would be grateful for it, which I am sure in some way she was, but above all, she trusted the doctors to do what was right for her. The medical world holds a lot of significance to my grandmother; she assumes that what they say is always correct, simply the only way it is to be done. Therefore she finds comfort in the drugs, which probably frightened her when she learned that some would be taken away from her. Her ex-husband, or my grandfather also must take lots of medication as he had open-heart surgery at the age of forty. While my grandmother embraces the drugs thrust upon her, my grandfather has enough pride to counter the doctors as much as possible. But when it comes down to it, he needs to take the medication to survive.
The final question that I asked was “if you had one year to live, what would you do”. While the answers generated in class were interesting, we are all unwed and without children. The possibilities seem endless to us because we have nothing to tie us down. I myself said travel, which just happened to be the first words out of my mother’s mouth. “A year off of life” as she calls it; she would take my family and I to Europe and explore – just goof off for a year. Her answer came quick and easy, as if it were the simplest question in the world. When I asked my father, I was bombarded with back up questions. “How much money do I have? Am I fatally ill? Or am I just going to get shot at the end of the year?” He took the question a lot more seriously than most do. In the reality of it all, we must come to terms with the actual possibility of us being able to do the things we want – unfortunately there are factors that determine what we can and cannot do. Ultimately he decided that he would tie up all of his affairs, leaving my family and me as much money as possible. He said he wanted my sister and me to be happy that he had finally passed on, and to not remember him physically, but instead have an everlasting impression of him in our minds. Or in other words, he wanted to be remembered for the deeds he performed, the people he helped, and the lessons he taught, rather than how he looked. We would be free to forget his face, but not his ideals. All he could possibly think about was making sure that after he had moved on, we would continue to have great lives, so that if our kids were to ask us this question, we would have a better answer than he did.
