HEALTHY FAMILY REACTIONS TO ILLNESS: INITIAL STAGE
When a loved one first gets sick, most families band together and simply try to get through day by day. At first, family members buffer their shock by becoming numb and by focusing on one another in caring and concerned ways as they await the outcome of the crisis. The question of whether the loved one will survive haunts everyone until this initial stage passes.
The emotional wounds that must eventually be healed during recovery from heart illness begin with the hospitalizing of the heart patient. It is as traumatic to see a loved one go through this frightening experience as it is to go through it yourself. The siren screams as the ambulance speeds off, and your life is changed forever. Soon you are confronted with the bustling and disorienting environment of the hospital. Monitors beep, heart rates are graphed as squiggly lines on television screens, and tubes seem to be attached everywhere. The patient and the family are separated as the medical team takes charge of a life that is precious to you all. Time seems endless as the drama with an unclear outcome—life or death?—unfolds.
If surgery is required, there is the additional horror of life on a respirator. The patient cannot speak and may float in and out of awareness. The patient's frustrations and fears at being unable to communicate with nurses and loved ones are frightening. For the family the image of a loved one lying helpless—connected to a machine, with tubes coming out of nose and throat, and needles dripping fluids into both arms—can last a lifetime. Such memories haunt Warren from the time his wife had bypass surgery: "Rebecca was always so full of life and energy. I had never seen her sick. When I saw her for the first time after her bypass operation, I truly thought I would have a heart attack. I was afraid to touch her. She didn't look like my wife. I still feel guilty about this, but the truth is that I was glad she was asleep. I had to leave the room after just a few minutes."
Fortunately, 98 percent of patients who have bypass surgery survive. But the family drama does not end with transfer from the critical care unit to the general cardiac floor. Once the patient is reasonably stable, the family is faced with the helplessness of being unable to cure their loved one. Feelings of relief are mixed with panic, fear, and sadness that this illness has happened.
Most people soon begin to be plagued with feelings of guilt. The guilt takes various forms:
"I should have kept this from happening."
"I wish we had settled our differences before this happened."
"I can't believe I let this happen to myself; now I'll be a big bother to everyone."
"I feel terrible about the argument we had yesterday" (or last week, or last year, or five years ago).
"I can't remember the last time I said 'I love you' out loud."
Healthy families are able to express such feelings openly, and they respond nurturingly to each other. But family tensions inevitably mount during this phase, both because of the stress of the situation and because the heart patient may remain somewhat withdrawn and unresponsive to others. This withdrawal is often an effect of medication; it may also be the psychological defense of blocking out the overwhelming emotional impact of a serious medical crisis. Unfortunately, the patient's withdrawal collides with the emotional needs of the frightened family. Family members want proof that the patient is going to recover and that their efforts to soothe and help the patient are working; at the same time, however, the patient may be less than willing or able to discuss these matters with anyone.
Thus, family members often develop feelings of anger and frustration. These feelings are fueled by the fatigue that soon sets in from keeping hospital vigils. The stressed and tired family may take their frustrations out on one another, noting who is reacting more or less caringly to everyone else during the ordeal.
More often, the tensions are taken out on medical personnel. The doctors and nurses just never seem to do or care enough to be helpful to the sick family member. The doctors and nurses may indeed be uncaring and unavailable, but it is also likely that no amount of care could cure the real pain that flows through families at this time: heartache and a desperate wish that this had not happened.
*9\170\9* |
