Among Friends Have an opinion on this column? Submit a Letter to the Editor Click here to return to archives Recuperative powers open door to inner life By Tad Bartimus Posted February 6, 2009 My annual post-holiday cold started with a tiny tickle on the right side of my throat. Two hours later, I had a temperature of 101 F, and my chest was so tight I was breathing in short little gasps. With a sinking heart, I knew from experience that before I could resume my active life, I would be in for four days of misery followed by two weeks of steadily decreasing symptoms. I was wrong. Now in my sixth week of being sick, my stubborn case of "community-borne" pneumonia is reshaping my attitude about illness -- how to deal with it myself and empathize with others whose odds of getting better are much less than mine. From my first twinge, my automatic reaction was that I wanted to get up and get moving as quickly as possible. In our culture, we say to ailing friends and colleagues "get well soon" for a variety of reasons, some of them self-serving. First, we don't like to see suffering. But we also want people around us to be "normal" because anything else throws our relationships off balance. If it's an office colleague, his or her absence may create a heavier workload for everybody else. If it's a boss who's out sick, there's a leadership vacuum. And with friends, our obligation to do something to help comes into play. When I first got sick, I was pretty much left alone. But the longer my illness dragged on, the more concern it generated. Pretty soon, friends were turning up with food and home remedies, offering to run errands and do chores, taking note of the fact that I wasn't in my proper place in their universe. Several made it a point to check in by phone every day "just to see how you are doing." Their concerns were genuine, their friendships pro-active. One woman who has been dealing with her own serious chronic illness for many months called often to share a humorous story or light-hearted anecdote. After a couple of weeks of this, it dawned on my foggy brain that this was the way she wanted her friends to treat her. Initially, I tried to "make better use" of my idle time by reading or writing, but I couldn't concentrate on anything outside myself. All my energy, conscious and unconscious, was focused on fighting my infection; no matter how strong my will to use my downtime "productively," I couldn't think straight. I moved from bed to couch to chair, sleeping most of the time and spending wakeful periods in reverie. "Why are you just staring into space?" my husband asked. I figured out it was because my physical stillness had opened up my internal life. Without the relentless white noise of a busy external world, I had connected with an inner clarity as my hibernating mind sorted through old problems and current challenges. Being sick gave me the opportunity to think deeply, unimpeded by the mental jumble of my ordinary life. I am better now, but I am heeding my doctor's warning to go slower because it could take up to three months to recover fully from pneumonia. I am at last an obedient (and sensible) post-crisis patient because I got scared enough to realize that one day my life truly will end, and I would prefer it to be later rather than sooner. Being so sick for so long has made me more empathetic to those who cope every day with the debilitation and frustrations of declining health. I also have a greater appreciation of the need to slow down and accept whatever each day brings. Some days will be sunnier than others, busier than others, more "productive" than others, but each is a gift. Being sick and then being lucky enough to get well has renewed my gratitude for all my days.