Perspective

Losing Your Health Doesn't Mean That

You've Lost Everything ...

by Marc Gellman

‘Best of the Worst’

Reprinted with permission

Sept. 28, 2006 - This week's popular but untrue saying is, “If you have your health, you have everything.” Because if this saying is true, then it also true that if you lose your health, you have nothing. This is not only false, it is spiritually corrosive. Placing upon people the double burden of both their illness and the despairing conclusion that their illness has taken away from them everything important is much more than false. It is deeply cruel.

I know that the saying intends to be positive. It intends to say something like, “We should never want more than just our health because nothing we have is more important.” Of course I agree that we should strive to live healthful lives and avoid the trans-fatty parts of the universe, but health is a fleeting thing, affected by environmental and genetic and even purely random factors. The fixation on health as the only important thing is what is behind this saying, and what is behind the unnecessary and often debilitating despair of sick people.In my life so far, the two people I knew who best refuted the if-you-have-your-health-you-have-everything saying were Henry Viscardi and Pam Rothman, may their memories be blessed.

Born with severely short, twisted legs, rejected by his parents and forced to grow up in a sanatorium, Henry Viscardi was the Martin Luther King Jr. of the disabled. He was a driving force behind the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the founder of the Henry Viscardi School for the disabled in Albertson, N.Y. One day when my friend Msgr. Tom Hartman and I were visiting Henry, he said to us, “I never think of the people in this center as disabled. I think of you guys as just temporarily abled.” Henry taught us that day that we are all part of the same continuum of gradually decreasing ableness that moves from the time we are children flying across lawns to the time when we wake up, get out of bed and say, “Oy, that hurts!” Nobody is disabled. We are all just temporarily abled until that day when we are no longer quite so abled.

When Moses broke the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments because of his anger at the people for worshiping the golden calf, God gave him a new unbroken copy, but God also commanded Moses to place all the broken pieces of the first tablets together in the same golden ark of the covenant that held the new unbroken tablets. The broken and the whole were together in the same ark. As it was so it is with us now. Those of us who happen to be disabled and those of us who happen to be temporarily abled are together in the covenant of God's love and must be together in the bonds of love and support we extend to each other. The broken and the whole are together in the same ark.

In the Jewish laws concerning the treatment of dying people, the rabbis taught this same lesson. In Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah, the first line we read is, “A dying person is like a living person in all essential respects.” We are commanded to view dying people the way we would view any other temporarily abled people. They are living and we are living. In that essential respect we are the same. When we coddle them, infantilize them, hide the truth from them or treat them as if they were already dead, we have separated them from the community of people made in the image of God. My father, Sol Gellman, has Alzheimer's disease. My father does not know my name, but when I hugged him and kissed him goodbye on my last visit, he grabbed me and said to me, “I know that I belong to you, and I know that you belong to me.” Even now, in the midst of his deepening fog, my father still knows everything that is important to know.Pam Rothman died of cancer after a long struggle, and although she eventually lost her life, she never lost her smile. One day sitting in her hospital room, Pam said to me, “Rabbi, I can't be the best of the best any longer, but I can still be the best of the worst.” And she was the best of the worst, the very best of the very worst. She helped other cancer patients cling to hope, she held her family together by her embracing love and she read and wrote to the end. In the end Pam was taken, but she was never defeated.

Like Pam, many people find that their greatest artistic, spiritual and personal achievements come after they are sick. The greatest theoretical physicist in the world is Stephen Hawking. He has the motor neuron disease ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), and he cannot move from his wheelchair. He speaks through a speech synthesizer. He has the best mind trapped in the worst body and this fact has not dimmed but brightened his brilliant light. Christopher Reeve was a good actor and a great Superman but he became a great inspirational force only after his injury. The greatest modern Jewish theologian was Franz Rosenzweig, and though he died in 1929, also from the predations of ALS, his illness did not diminish his brilliant translation of the Bible into German with his friend Martin Buber nor his philosophical masterwork, “The Star of Redemption,” which he wrote by holding a pencil in his mouth and pointing to the keys on the typewriter.Henry and Pam, Stephen and Chris, Franz and Helen Keller, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Soren Kierkegaard, FDR, Beethoven and a thousand brave and wise and creative people whose bodies were broken or who suffered disabilities or ill health have given everything to the world—while millions of people who have their health have given nothing. And how else can we understand God's decision to pick Moses, a disabled man with a cleft palate to be the leader of the Exodus from Egypt? God picks the soul, not the body. Through an endless list of wounded genius we are taught and must finally learn that losing your health does not mean that you have lost your genius or your destiny.Much of my counseling is devoted to helping people cope with newly broken lives. Perhaps their life has been broken by injury or illness or perhaps by the death or illness of someone they loved more than life itself. In all these cases the people who come to see me know that they have lost a substantial part of their physical or mental health, and because they secretly believe this damn saying, they think they have lost everything. My job is to convince them that the saying is wrong. I must try to urge them, cajole them, teach them and remind them that even in their weakened state they still have everything they need to lead a spiritually, morally and even physically happy life. They may not have what they had but they have what they have, and as long as they are still alive, what they have is enough. They may not be able to do what they once did. They may have to adjust the expectations of their life, but they do not have to surrender their life or their hope or their resolve to be the best they can be with what they have left. This is not a counsel of despair and resignation. It is a counsel of hope and faith.

The reason health is not everything is your health is about you, and EVERYTHING REALLY IMPORTANT IN YOUR LIFE IS ABOUT OTHERS:

serving others, loving others and teaching others reveals our true purpose and ultimate destiny. The rabbis wrote, “Give me community or give me death.” Losing your health is a terrible thing but losing a community of love and purpose is fatal. Our only chance to find everything is to get out of ourselves.So I wish you a year of health, and I wish you a year of knowing that having your health is not even close to having everything .

Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25

Back Home

When I looked at my blog today and saw the last post was on September 26, I became aware of how these last weeks have slipped so quickly by - life can be like that sometimes. I have been very ill (yes even more "ill" than normal!). I've survived 2 bouts of Septic Shock, each one requiring a tour of duty in ICU. The source, I'm told is Urinary Sepsis, but honestly I don't know how the doctors can be certain that the infection started there. The infection got into my bloodstream and spread to all of my organs. That's what they call 'septic shock'. There is a blood test for Lactic Acid that the doctors check if you are in sepsis. Normal is below 1, and mine was 3.6 at the highest. The doctor said that I have a strain of e Coli. I've heard that Apples and undercooked beef are prime sources for e Coli, and I've been eating a lot of apples lately, so I wonder if that is where it came from. Personally, I think I ingested an amount that a healthy person would be able to tolerate, but which I, in my immune suppressed state could not. I hope and pray that it is under control now and am so happy to be home with my family. I still feel very weak, dizzy, and I have pain, but it's getting a little better day by day.

During my first hospital stay, I was feeling much better on my last day and started watching the Home Shopping Network (DANGER!). Since I have my Visa card number (MORE DANGER!), I hopped onto the phone and started buying "things" I just "couldn't do without". It's a dangerous thing for me to be feeling better, but still under the influence of Dialudid, and all alone in a hospital room. Most of the things I bought are very nice and useful. One of my more questionable purchases was a 2 1/2 foot tall fountain featuring a fairy with butterfly wings and lots of tiffany style glass work and a tiffany lamp that shines down on it all. I love fountains, and also I had this idea that my kitty would find it and drink from the fresh, flowing water. However, when I tried to introduce her to her little oasis, she went ballistic and clawed her way up and over me as fast as she could go. Acting out the very definition of insanity, I actually tried this a second time, with exactly the same results. I think it was the sound of running water that scared her - she thought she was about to get a bath. Hmmmm..... it's like my daughter said, "I don't really think it's something we NEEDED", when I asked her what she thought of it. She was trying so hard to be polite and not burst my bubble. Oh well, it's here now and not going back - it'll be a good conversation piece, as it sits in our dining room faithfully pouring forth it's water over the years. It's definitely unique, and our guests aren't likely to have seen one anywhere else....

In between the two bouts with sepsis, I have vague recollections of receiving a lot of packages in the mail (from my shopping spree), talking to Bucky and Ruth one day, trying out my new steam mop (yes, another HSN purchase), working on paperwork for my Disability Insurer, a few doctor visits, Amanda getting sick, and me just generally feeling cruddy and trying to make it through the days one at a time. Then came the second round of Sepsis and the whirlwind of all of that. It feels like you get sucked into some ailment, then into the hospital, and everything is a blur and then you are plopped out on the sidewalk and sent home. There is so much I miss or forget, so many loose ends. I know it's frustrating for my family to have to tell me the same things over and over, and I pray for their patience and understanding - I really am trying to do my best, it's just soooo hard.

I was shocked to realize that Summer had completely given way to Autumn during my illness. There is so much I missed, not the least of which is helping my son with his schoolwork and spending time with my daughter. We had planned to spend the whole day Friday Nov 2 together, but I ended up in the hospital. I also blitzed right through my husbands BIG 60th birthday, although I was relieved that I had been able to obtain a special gift for him months before.

Another thing I lost track of is the mountain of documents that have to be provided to my Disability Insurer by Monday, Nov. 12. Michael requested all of the documents for the past year and they were all stacked up here waiting for me to do something with them. Mom took them to Kinko's today to get them all copied. It will cost around $60 for the copies, plus we've already spent almost $300 on the documents themselves. Then I'll have to overnight them to Liberty Mutual since we're almost upon the deadline now. I'm sure that won't be cheap since the documents weigh over 7 pounds (and this is only partial records for the last 12 months!). Anyway, it's almost done now and I won't have it hanging over my head (until the next go-round!). It does make my head hurt sometimes, just trying to stay afloat in the mounds of paperwork, Medicare "stuff", medical bills, pharmacy bills, etc. I just have to take it a day at a time and do what I'm able to do for each day.

I miss swimming too. I haven't been in nearly 2 months, and it's the only physical outlet my joints will tolerate. I'm hoping to get back over the weekend or early next week. When I make it to the pool I'll know for sure that I'm on the up side of this ordeal. I can't wait!

I have no travel plans for the fall, but most of my family will travel to the "home place" in Louisiana for Thanksgiving. This includes my 20 year old daughter and her boyfriend. It's his first trip over, and a traditional rite of passage for anyone that is seriously dating a member of the family. It's quite a change from life around metro Atlanta, and there have been some that just couldn't deal with the shock of it all. I don't believe this is the case with her boyfriend; they have a very stable relationship and he seems to simply adore her. No matter what a shock the backwoods of Louisiana are to him, I think he'll do whatever it takes to adjust. I really wish I could be there. I know it will be a memorable trip, full of fun and lots of stories to share afterwards. I wish could join them, but simply must sit out this time around. I have been blessed to visit twice this year, and that will likely be the best I can do.

It's great to be home and back among "the living".