Gratitude Practice 5 of 12

fabiennesmorgana

6 months ago

I tried to share photos once a week so that people weren’t too surprised – because when people don’t know what to say, they often say unhelpful things. I was far too vulnerable to be able to deal with that.

Pale skinned person in warm softly lit room: zyr eyelashes and eyebrows look slightly patchy, and ze has chemo peach fuzz hair. — I tried to share photos once a week so that people weren’t too surprised – because when people don’t know what to say, they often say unhelpful things. I was far too vulnerable to be able to deal with that.

Gratitude Practice: second week of my second chemo cycle

I think this was probably the week that I realised that I was really sick, and that I was really going to have to use all my skills and resources to get through it. Gratitude Practice helped so much. Something so simple – once you separate the idea that you have to be happy or well or that life has to be good in order to be grateful.

Chemo Round Two of Four, Week Two, Day One (Day 29 of 85).

“For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever.”

Charlotte Brontë

Chemo Round Two of Four, Week Two, Day Two (Day 30 of 85).

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

G. K. Chesterton

I would add that gratitude is assisted by humour. My humour is alternates between whimsy, absurdism, and gallows humour.

Chemo Round Two of Four, Week Two, Day Three (Day 31 of 85).

Partial share of one of my points of gratitude for the day because it still makes me laugh.

1. I’m grateful there were no witnesses when I punched myself in the face whilst putting on a compression bandage; to add insult to injury, of course it prompted a nose bleed – and nose bleeds are kind of different when you have no nose hair…. more…. free flowing.

Oh, and you have to clean up your nose carefully post nose bleed because otherwise, the blood sticks to the inside of your nose (fragile skin, compromised mucus membranes) and then it will cause another nose bleed.

Being sick is ridiculous sometimes.

“Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life.”

Rumi

Chemo Round Two of Four, Week Two, Day Four (Day 32 of 85).

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

Marcel Proust

Chemo Round Two of Four, Week Two, Day Five (Day 33 of 85).

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”

Meister Eckhart

Chemo Round Two of Four, Week Two, Day Six (Day 34 of 85).

“What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.”

Brené Brown

Chemo Round Two of Four, Week Two, Day Seven (Day 35 of 85).

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”

G. K. Chesterton

Source of “Old Celtic Prayer” – “The Dominion of Dreams” in Under the Dark Star by Fiona Macleod (aka William Sharp) 1895.

SELF CHECKS

Ensure that you are vigilant around your self-examination. Train yourself to check your breasts/testicles routinely, and monitor your bowel habits and your urine output. These are our body’s early warning signs, and we don’t have a lot of awareness of them.

Toilet psychology

Nick Haslam argues that psychologists should stop averting their eyes from the bathroom

7 myths about urinary incontinence explained

It’s important – urine and faeces are two daily health checks that everyone can do: start training yourself to monitor them today.

Working in bowel disease research you soon learn to get up to speed with dealing with some very taboo subjects. Warts, tears, abscesses, and hernias in places you wouldn’t ever dream of. We’re dealing with a part of the body whose function after all is to get rid of waste. Your internal sewer system if you like.

As with most charities that I have worked with be it hospices, disabled children, people with arthritis – when you deal with sensitive topics, issues or health matters there is always an accompanied gallows humour amongst colleagues and indeed patients and family members who you support.

Laughter, is perhaps the best medicine.

But when taboo comes to town and people are afraid to talk – that’s when problems can escalate. If people are afraid or embarrassed into silence and don’t seek support when symptoms occur they can potentially make matters worse.
Peter Rowbottom CEO of Bowel Disease Research Foundation. (BDRF)
Breaking down taboo about our bowels…