Sometimes I read the obits, OK, I actually read them all the time. I skim them for names of people I know, I skim them for date of birth...Were they elderly? Did they live a long life? Were they tragically killed as a young person? Who did they leave behind? Sometimes when I read them, a personal note is written by the family or friends, that gives you a sense of the person they were in life. Often, there is a statement that might read "He/She fought valiantly against the (name the disease) but lost his/her battle after weeks/months/years of struggle. I have yet to read one that says "Upon hearing his diagnosis of (name the disease), Joey laid back and cried, preferring to hole up in his darkened room to vegetate."
It got me thinking of the word "victim". What a loaded word! (Victim of crime. Victim of cancer. Victim of a car accident. Don't be a victim! A victim is weak and whiny.) For fun I looked up the root word of victim, since it is close to a rather strong word that conjures up power: Victor. Ha! Strangely enough, "victim" doesn't really have a "root"word but it comes from the Latin "victima: a beast used for sacrifice and "victus" that's right: To conquer. So strangely it seems that if you are a "victim" (of circumstances/disease etc.) you may also be a victor in those circumstances. We mostly hear the word "survivor" when looking for a word for a person who fights back from an illness or circumstance. You know the ones: They join groups, they march, they raise funds, they go before panels, they seek out help from the internet/referrals from people/networking. They are breathtaking in their quest to be that person who refuses to give up. We all admire a winner, do we not? BUT there are people who have an illness/disease etc that finally takes a toll on their body/psyche/spirit and they just don't want to fight anymore. Quality of life outweighs quantity of life. If you are close to that person and they make that decision, you have horrifying mixed emotions. You want your loved one to have a life with no pain or less suffering from the "cure" but the thought of losing them is so overwhelming you feel like a selfish pig. My dad had his first heart attack at age 52. He either wasn't a candidate for surgical intervention or chose not to; I have heard it was the latter, but I really don't know. What he DID do was change his lifestyle. He changed his diet, cutting out his beloved big ice cream bowl on Sunday night and subbing it for Rice Dream. He started becoming more active (hard to do when you have had polio), he also probably ate less fast food junk (again hard to do as a traveling salesman), but he did try to change as best he could. Along with medications etc. I think he did the best he could. However, he died suddenly and unexpectedly 3 years later of a heart attack. Victor? Victim? Did he do everything he could have done? Shouldn't he have have had surgery to give himself more of a fighting chance?
Should someone with an "incurable" disease fight to the death with no hope to really prolong their life, or do what you can to live pain free in your last days? I don't know the answer. It is so personal to each person. My husband was the "victim" of a stroke. We have decided that we will do all that we can to restore our lives to those of "Victor", but there is only so much you can do. You cannot magically go into a person's brain to solder the dead spots and reconnect pathways. But as I have always believed "Focus on the cans not the cannots" So we work towards that goal with the means we have. We CAN eat healthier. We CAN exercise more. We CAN make sure meds are taken. We CAN research/network to find out what works and what doesn't. We CAN support one another when the times get tough. We CAN rely on friends and family if we need to (ok, that one is tough...) What we CANNOT do, is nothing. Like a candidate running for office, you have to believe you will win. If you start a race thinking you are gonna lose, you already have. Will the changes we make in our lives have any bearing on longevity? Who really knows? Not one single person on this planet has a guarantee of long life. But you can live the finest life you can in the moments you have.As someone pointed out to me whose husband has a serious illness: "You know I could get hit by a car on the way to taking him to the hospital."
So the choice is clear: Live like a winner or live like you've already been defeated. That is the difference between victim and victor.
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