What do you say when there are no words: on grief, friendship and love
- EK Wills
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
By The MotherMind Doctor
When your close friend tells you she has trouble communicating and it turns out to be a brain tumour, this literally turns life on its head.
My friend is a practicing GP and somehow we think doctors are above human tragedy but life happens to them, too.
This was all the more shocking because she is in her mid 50s and she is a long practicing health proponent, eating a plant-based diet, with exercise built into her routine, and has Buddhist beliefs.
Her diagnosis is the most common form of glioma which also claimed the life of the late Dr Richard Scolyer. It is aggressive and can happen at any age but more often in older adults, and there is no cure.
I, like all her loved ones, was stunned into speechlessness.
This should be a time of claiming freedom and looking towards the future, but instead she is facing devastating news. Initially, she was given a year and a half but, after a series of complications, the prognosis is worse, and time is shortening before our eyes.
An alarming aspect of her condition is the impact on her speech. We speculated that she had trouble communicating because the mass was pressing on the speech centre. But it goes deeper than that as she is also not able to even write or SMS.
When looking at the symptoms of gliobastoma multiforme (GBM), confusion, memory and difficulty concentrating are also present. Language difficulties include word finding difficulty as well as understanding language . This means that she is not able to communicate much other than to provide yes/no responses, adding to the desperation for everyone.
It also means she has limited opportunity to be able to process her grief, and share her journey with those who love and want to support her. She tires easily and is keeping indoors at home, naturally not wanting visitors. This adds to the distress of those around her who are also reeling and wanting to reach out to support her.
In times like these, we cannot help but reflect on the random nature of who is touched by such circumstance. She is my age, has kids the same age as mine, we went to medical school together and shared similar experiences of that time because we were both approaching study as mature parents. We connect on many levels and share many ideologies. She went on to become a GP focussing on nutrition, and more specifically plant-based nutrition, as a foundation of health. She impacted many of her patients’ lives with her work and her generosity and warmth extended to all of us in her personal life.
If you or anyone you know are touched by such an experience, it can be difficult to know what to say. Despite my medical training, I was at a loss to know how to communicate, given her predicament.
We had plans to travel together early next year which have naturally been cancelled.
I resorted to sharing my recent trip abroad with her on a daily basis as a kind of virtual, shared holiday. This way I could reach out to share some ongoing connection, without her feeling any pressure to respond.
But the journey is not over for her and she has the toughest road to travel before her. We can only try to support her and her family, while trying to come to terms with our own existential angst. No-one can anticipate events like these and there is no correct way to respond. What we can do is let people know we are there and love them.
If you have experience of someone close to you with a serious illness, I'd love to hear your story in the comments. Or maybe you would like to share it with someone who might need it.
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