The Human Condition
Jun 1st, 2008 by zania
Today’s post will not make you happy. In fact, it could make you feel depressed, so best to avoid it if you are feeling really low right now. But I think it is well worth sharing.
This is about a blog post written by a freelance writer called Marcie Vargas.
Marcie has worked in health care for some years, particularly in hospices. This hasn’t made her depressed (in fact she appears to be a person who is able to take things as they come), but it has made her a very good listener and someone who understands the human condition very well.
The post which caught my eye was called The Death Professional. It is an incredibly moving story of one of Marcie’s hospice patients, a woman suffering from terminal ovarian cancer.
I won’t tell you the story here, as Marcie tells it so much better than I could. I will just say that it demonstrates an accepting understanding of human frailties by a cancer patient and the incredible conflict ordinary people have coming to terms with a family member who is terminally ill.
This is not a happy story. It certainly will not cheer you up, but it is extremely thought provoking piece which is not particularly long, but which says a lot.
So when you are not feeling too depressed and you want to read something moving and very perceptive, why not check it out?
Thank you for sharing my post with your readers, I sincerely hope that it in some way helped you and your readers, just as writing it helped me. Writing pieces such as The Death Professional is my therapy for dealing with the emotions that invariably come up working with hospice patients.
Best,
Marcie Vargas
Hi Marcie,
thanks for popping in and commenting here.
I worked in a hospital environment myself for a while and found it extraordinarily moving how stoic patients can be in the face of adversity, but also how confused families can become when one of their number is ill.
It must take a great inner strength to work with hospice patients, because, unlike the hospital environment which is balanced with recovery as well as terminal illness, a hospice has a whole different environment.
I greatly admire anyone who works day by day in a hospice and makes a difference to the patient’s lives, and I am so glad that writing about it, you are not only providing your own therapy, but bringing home to your readers the mix of emotions involved.
Thanks so much for stopping by
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