It has occurred to me that society has a way of cloaking the difficult aspects of life, death and some things in between. I assumed that because I was OK to talk about Mom's cancer, everyone else would be OK about it too. At first I was hurt that friends changed the subject. Then I began to realise that I was talking to the wrong people. There are some people who are more open about these things. Some people will never feel comfortable talking about dying matters.
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| Health and youth, VLM |
It struck me that people with terminal illnesses become invisible, to protect the rest of us from their pain. In the same way that our society deals with older people; out of sight, out of mind. It's cruel.
Getting older is by definition a terminal illness, without the defined time frame. It is associated with a general, slow degeneration of the physical body, even in the elderly well person. This presents the medical profession with somewhat of a dilemma - how to treat all the aches, pains and ailments? I often hear friends bemoaning their elderly parents grumpiness, complaining and selfish behaviour. I do it myself. And then I try to remember that Dad is getting on a bit, that things don't work quite as well as they used to. Perhaps he does have general aches and pains which interfere with his quality of life and affect his sleep.
So, whilst the terminally ill are still living with their illness, so are lots of older people living with ageing. Let's not pretend they are invisible.