Unforeseen Lessons from Illness: Mastering Patience and Resilience

Unforeseen Lessons — What I Learned Through Being Sick — About Patience & Resilience

I didn’t ask for patience and resilience. It came to me like an unexpected diagnosis, presented in someone else’s words. It arrived at a time I chose. Additionally, resilience arrived as well. Neither one came because I requested it. Both came because of Multiple Myeloma.

This is the part that most other similar stories leave out. They go directly to the lesson, the learning, the silver lining – as though the disease was a fair but firm teacher who provided both wisdom and suffering. It wasn’t. It never asked how much I could take before giving me something to take. But it did teach. That is true. Without sugarcoating it or making it appear nicer than it really was.

Resolve did not bring resilience.

Necessity brought it.

On a night I remember how I felt rather than the date.

There was a fever that wouldn’t break.

There was a phone call to the ER on-call service.

I drove to the ER while my hands were so shaky I couldn’t help much driving.

I didn’t decide to be strong.

I had to respond to each step ahead of me.

Answer the questions.

Sign the forms.

Stay perfectly still for the IV.

Resilience isn’t usually a decision we make in advance.

More often than not, resilience is what remains after fear takes almost everything.

I didn’t create it.

The pressure created it within me.

Heat and time transform carbon into something harder than it was originally.

Patience and resilience arrived slowly, in tiny pieces. Additionally, fifteen minutes waiting in the waiting area turned into 40. Lab test results took an extra day. Moreover, treatment plans changed twice before finally settling down. Sickness corrected that opinion quickly and without hesitation. I learned to wait in the infusion chair without glancing at my watch. I learned to allow doctors to complete sentences before deciding what they mean. I realized that a recovering body follows its own agenda, and nothing would hurry it along. While this wasn’t peace, it resembled surrender that was useful. Therefore, it was a surrender I could wake up and use the next morning.

Ultimately, that type of patience and resilience hasn’t stayed in the hospital either. It has accompanied me out the door and into everyday life, which is where I see it most today. When I’m stuck in traffic and used to gripe the steering wheel and grind my teeth, I find myself merely waiting. During conversations with those I care for — when I used to interrupt others so that I could provide a solution to whatever problems they described before they’d completed describing them — I now find myself listening rather than merely waiting for my opportunity to speak. At work, whenever a project stalls or a plan fails, I don’t view delays as crises anymore. I’ve endured far greater delays than a missed deadline. I understand what it costs to push a body that is not yet ready, and I carry this awareness throughout all places that previously I demanded that things happen faster than they were designed to occur.

Resilience appears in different ways now, less dramatically than it did in the emergency room. It shows itself when a plan fails and I fail with it. It shows itself when someone I care about is struggling and I see the look on his/her face because I’ve seen it myself. I do not flinch as easily from difficult situations as I once did. Not because I’m fearless. I’m not. I flinch less now because I’ve stood in the toughest room there is and I’m still standing.

No one should assume that the illness was worth it. I won’t suggest such nonsense because I don’t agree with it and neither do I want to perpetuate false statements of courage simply for the sake of sounding courageous. There was pain involved; Nights were long; Some of what I lost cannot be regained. However, there are genuine lessons here too and they belong to me now — earned and not bestowed upon me. Earned lessons do not cancel out the hardships that produced them. They do not justify the fear that you experienced. All they do is somewhat redeem parts of it. Not all. Parts. Enough to continue moving forward.