Handling Diseases That Will Eventually Lead to Death

The cremation services offered in Solvay, NY help families after the death of a loved one. This includes helping plan funeral or memorial services, cremation, returning the cremation remains to the family and helping them to find ways to memorialize their deceased love one, whether that includes urns or memorial jewelry and storing or burying the cremated remains.

However, before the death of loved ones, some of them have diseases that may last for weeks, months, or years before death occurs. Handling the disease process without ever knowing when death will actually occur can be very difficult.

Some diseases, like lung cancer, breast cancer, and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, may go into remission several times and then reoccur over years and decades. Other diseases, like congestive heart failure and cardiac myopathy, slowly make their way toward death, with some good days and some bad days along the way. Cancers of the liver and pancreas, on the other hand, often result in very fast deaths, because by the time they are diagnosed, the cancers have already metastasized and spread.

There are diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s Disease or ALS) that start slowly and may go for some time without any severe or noticeable symptoms, but as the disease progresses, more symptoms appear until all ability to move or speak is gone, but death can still linger for some time after that.

The knowledge that death is the outcome, but the constant uncertainty that accompanies these kinds of diseases can take a physical, emotional, and mental toll on us as we watch our loved ones in the process.

Uncertainty in any part of life is stressful, but the uncertainty surrounding long-term diseases where we already know that death is the end result is very stressful. Stress does a number on our own health, and prolonged stress can actually lead to us developing health problems and to dying prematurely.

The stress of uncertainty shows up in different. You may find that you become hypervigilant about your loved one’s health, wondering about little things that may occur every day and worrying that those things mean a downturn in your loved one’s health. Every ache, pain, or health-related symptom may cause you to overreact and insist on seeking immediate medical care.

The other thing that happens, mostly in the background, when we’re handling diseases where death is the inevitable outcome, is that we begin to grieve and feel sadness over the past we had with our loved one and the present that is changing and the future that never will be. You may not be able to put your finger on exactly what’s wrong, but it’s characterized mainly be a pervasive feeling of sadness, even though our loved one is very much alive.

This sadness can take away from any quality time we have left with our loved one and make the present memories less pleasant than they can be if we can resolve to savor each day with our loved one and enjoy it to the fullest. That is the healthiest approach to handling these kinds of diseases, but it can be very hard to do at times. But, we must make every effort, so we don’t have regrets when our loved one does die.

If you need the grief resources we offer with cremation services in Solvay, NY, our compassionate and experienced team at Bagozzi Twins Funeral Home, Inc. is here to help. You can visit us at our funeral home at 2601 Milton Ave., Solvay, NY 13209, or you can call us today at (315) 468-2431.