Radical Acceptance

So many people have made comments to me about how strong I am for the way I am dealing with Nathaniel’s illnesses (his hemophilia and lung problems). They’ve said the same things to Lesley. The difference is, though, that she really is strong. Me? Well…
I’m just too weak to fight with it.

Nathaniel is very sick. Even as I type this, he’s back in the hospital due to his heavy congestion. Maybe he’s not quite over the cold that sent him to the hospital last week. When we catch a cold, our lungs produce mucus that we expel to push the virus causing the cold out of our bodies. Nathaniel’s lungs, for whatever reason, are not expelling that mucus. The mucus builds up and builds up and builds up and slowly causes his lungs not to work in keeping his blood oxygen saturation at a healthy level. Dealing with this is not strength.

I’ve stuck Nathaniel on 2 different occasions, and plan on doing so again soon. I mean that I’ve put the needle into the subcutaneous port in order to infuse the blood clotting factor. I did the whole process from wiping the counter down with Clorox disinfecting wipes to make the area sterile to putting on the band aid to throwing everything away when we’re done. This is not strength, either.

I’ve had to explain to Jacob and Caitlin on many different occasions why they cannot jump on the bed or on the floor or on the couch next to him. If they were to trip and fall on him, it could cause an internal bleed that could kill him. Not strength.

What is it then?

I think I call it acceptance. This is what we do now. We take Nathaniel to the hospital when he can’t breathe. That’s just what we do. We give him his blood clotting factor. It’s a shot 3 times a week. We balance keeping him safe from his very active brother and sister with trying to make sure they know that they can touch him, love on him, and have fun with him. That’s our daily lives.

It doesn’t take strength, unless it’s the strength of acceptance. But really, accepting reality doesn’t take a heck of a lot of strength either. I’ve always found fighting reality is a lot harder than accepting it. This is kind of my approach to exercise really. I know the dumbbell’s heavy. I can accept that and move on. I don’t need to lift it to know it’s going to be hard to lift. Lifting it takes strength. I’m a very weak, out of shape person, but I accept that.

I know that it’s going to be hard to cope with Nathaniel’s illnesses. Fighting with illness takes more strength than accepting that it’s going to be hard. So often we compound our own difficulties by thinking that life should not be difficult, or wondering why this is happening to me, or grumbling about the fact that life is unfair.

Life is hard enough without making it worse by feeling bad about the fact that it’s hard. Getting angry about the fact that life is hard won’t really help the situation, either. The first of the four noble truths of Buddhism is that life is suffering. Once we accept that, life gets a little easier; because we stop fighting so much when suffering comes. Actually, it’s one of the first things Christians know about being a fallen human in a fallen world. God told Eve, in pain she would bring forth children. And to Adam, the Lord said, “By the sweat of your brow shall you get bread to eat.” Life isn’t paradise in the garden anymore. We and the world are fallen from that perfect state of creation, so we suffer.

The real trick is to accept suffering. It’s an incontrovertible consequence of our fallen state. We suffer because of original sin. What makes so much conflict in our lives is that we don’t want to accept suffering. That doesn’t mean that if I get sick I should just lay down and die. When I get a headache, I take Advil. I also know that until the Advil really kicks in, my head is going to hurt. Getting upset about that and irritable with those around me is not going to make my head hurt any less.

If I were to get cancer, I would get treatment. I would also accept the fact that I’m probably going to feel like crap from the cancer and the treatment. That’s part of the process. I would also, if it were to come to that eventually, accept the fact that all treatment has been done and there is nothing left to do. I would accept the inevitability of my own death, and make preparations. Getting mad about it; getting sad about it; being a jerk about it is not going to help the situation.

Nathaniel has hemophilia. We accept that. That doesn’t mean we let it go and hope for the best. We provide him the necessary assistance to manage it so that it will be as unobtrusive to his life as possible. We accept that, too. Nathaniel’s lungs are weak. He cannot expel the mucus that builds up in them if he catches a cold. What can I do about that? Getting mad doesn’t change the reality that this dumbbell is heavy to lift. I accept it. Jacob has to wear a patch over his eye for at least 8 weeks. I hope to teach him to accept reality as it is. We do what we have to do to manage reality. Getting mad, embarrassed, shy, sad, or upset is not going to change the fact that this is what we have to do.

In a lot of ways, Nike had it right.

Just do it.

In the end, it brings me back to Job. After losing his children, his livestock, his servants, and everything he had, the Lord then allowed Satan to strike him with an illness causing severe boils. His wife told him that he should just “Curse God and die!” (Man, I’ve wanted to say that to a few people in my time.)

“But he said to her, ‘You speak as foolish women do. We accept good things from God; should we not accept evil?’ Through all this, Job did not sin in what he said.” Job 2:10.

Ultimately, it is not strength that helps me bear up under trials. It is acceptance.