Your body is a teeming battleground
It’s time for us to rethink our quest to control death, aging and disease, as well as the fear of dying that drives it.
I attended medical school to learn about death, and maybe to find peace with it. As I found out, many of my friends were doctors. You suddenly realize, usually when you are young but sometimes later in life, that you will die. This moment is frightening, shocking and terrible. You pretend that it never happened, but you still worry about other things. Then one day, you place your hand on your neck, in the shower for example, and… what is that? You know at first touch that those hard lumps shouldn’t be there. They are there, and they represent death. You can’t hide from your death.
I didn’t want to be shocked in that way. I thought if I became an experienced doctor, I would get used to death. It wouldn’t shock me and I could live with it. My strategy worked well. In the years I spent with my patients, I realized that I was going to be healthy until I fell ill. I knew that, although I could delay the inevitable, the control I had over the situation was very limited. I realized that I needed to live my life as if it were the last day of my life, and as if there was no tomorrow. As I watched, what was once called \”medical\” care–that is treating the sick—-turned into \”healthcare,\” keeping people well, but at an ever-increasing cost.
Source:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/barbara-ehrenreich-natural-causes/556859/
