For most of us, we take our early cues on life and how to approach its challenges from our parents. If we’re fortunate to have the presence of caregivers in our lives, we turn to them in formulating our idea of what is possible, and how to handle adversity.
There’s an enormous amount I learned from my own father about confronting life’s challenges. But they may not be the lessons he intended, and it is only looking back now that I can fully connect the dots.
I can still remember that bitterly cold Chicago morning in 1973. My three-year-old self woke up from my dreams and into a nightmare. I was in a completely unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. I finally saw our next door neighbor in the doorway. I was in his home. And he was searching for the words to tell a small boy that his 37 year old father had just suffered a massive heart attack.
It was not my father’s time
He would go on to live more than another day, but his life would never truly be the same. After all, a heart attack can certainly shake the sturdiest among us and my father was no exception, going on to live in a state of extreme anxiety at the prospect of another heart attack.
As it turned out, my father’s death would come 20 years later. I was no longer a small boy but a second-year medical student at Northwestern University. I soon found myself on a transatlantic flight to our roots in India, where our father had been visiting his sister. I felt numb on the descent into Mumbai.
It was a dark and sad period, one that is a tragic part of the human experience. But as I look back on my father’s passing today, I’m able to see a silver lining. The fear that he lived with later helped me empathize with my patients and what they may be going through. Putting myself in my patients’ shoes was no abstract matter for me, but something I had seen and lived firsthand.
There must be a better way to live with disease
It’s difficult for me to say, but my father’s experience also told me that there must be a better way to live with disease than to live in a state of anxiety and fear. My father lived two decades after his heart attack. But in a real sense, the fear in his heart robbed him of so much joy and life in those decades in between. We can’t choose the circumstances of our health or the luck we’re dealt – but we can choose how we respond and how we live our lives.
When I encounter people as they first learn about the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (AFib), I try to picture my father in that office chair hearing the words from his doctor. I can only imagine what he was feeling: anxiety, fear, anger, guilt. I distinctly remember in my junior high and high school years that my dad didn’t want to play sports with me for fear of his heart giving out. He would purposely avoid certain restaurants like Italian ones because cheese was so pervasive and he would worry about it clogging his arteries.
Many of his fears were legitimate, and some were irrational. Regardless, they were all his reality. So when I speak with people about what they are feeling, I need to remind myself that their feelings are their reality. That is one of the cornerstones of empathy. The Cambridge English Dictionary definition of empathy is: the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation.
This is the true challenge in partnering with people to improve their health and their lives
As a medical professional, how do I help transition someone from a state of fear and anxiety to a state of trust and hope? The first step is to listen. Listening is one of the most important tools there is. So much about the diagnosis and treatment of a condition has its foundation in listening to the person living with the problem. That is where the buy-in happens. That is where earning trust happens. And it is only with this that any recommendation I give on a treatment course will have its intended effect.
Information is another critical tool in transitioning from fear to empowerment. But it has to be reliable information. That is one of the greatest challenges of today’s age, sifting through all the information that is out there and deciding what is true and what is hype. Information needs to go both ways: clinician to patient and patient to clinician.
Many of my patients bring in their own research on AFib and options. It is important to have this mutual respect for the therapeutic relationship to thrive.
