What Keeps Them Going?

A Smile of Hope or Despair?

I spend a fair amount of time reading about other patients.

COPD.

Heart disease.

Cancer.

Kidney disease.

Transplants.

And occasionally the impressive combinations.

Someone has severe COPD, diabetes, heart failure, high blood pressure and is taking enough medication to qualify as a small pharmacy.

I read their stories and find myself wondering:

How do they do it?

Not medically.

I understand the medicine.

At least enough to be dangerous.

I mean psychologically.

What gets them out of bed?

What convinces them to schedule the next appointment?

To refill the next prescription?

To keep exercising even though exercising feels suspiciously similar to punishment?

I honestly don't know.

And the older I get, the less convinced I am that there is a single answer.

People like to talk about courage.

I'm skeptical.

Most patients I've met aren't trying to be courageous.

They're trying to get through Tuesday.

Wednesday, if things go particularly well.

Maybe that's the secret.

Nobody is carrying the whole burden.

They're carrying today's burden.

Tomorrow's problems remain tomorrow's problems until tomorrow arrives.

Which is an efficient system.

Annoying, but efficient.

Sometimes I wonder about this blog.

Not whether it helps people.

That's impossible to know.

The internet is full of people claiming to change lives.

Most of them are selling something.

I'm not.

What I do wonder is whether reading about someone else's experience makes any difference at all.

Maybe someone reads these posts and feels less alone.

Maybe someone reads them and thinks:

"This guy complains less than I do."

Maybe someone reads them and concludes they should immediately stop complaining because things could be worse.

I wouldn't recommend that, by the way.

Complaining is one of the few remaining pleasures not yet regulated by the medical profession.

Or maybe none of that happens.

Maybe people simply recognize a piece of their own story.

The frustration.

The isolation.

The endless calculations.

The strange fact that a good day can be ruined by a blood test and a bad day can be rescued by a grandchild.

I don't know.

What I do know is that serious illness has made me much less interested in motivation.

Motivation comes and goes.

I've watched entire treatment plans survive long after motivation disappeared.

What interests me now is persistence.

The quiet decision to continue.

The next pill.

The next walk.

The next appointment.

The next morning.

Not because someone is hopeful.

Not because someone is brave.

Just because that's what comes next.

Maybe that's what keeps them going.