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Christians and chronic illness - Part 2

One the big issues that anyone coping with chronic illness has to deal with (apart from the illness itself) is how others around them deal with the illness and relate to the sufferer.

When confronted with someone we know who is ill, most of us want to help. When the illness is short term, the sufferer (and their family) will probably be grateful of the assistance, and most of the time that help is good and useful.
But with chronic, long term illness, the equation changes.
Families in this situation need to adjust to long term changes in their life. No matter how much others may want to help, that family has to adjust to their changed circumstances in a way that helps them to cope on a day to day basis.

For example, when my wife Rob became chronically ill in 1993, we had to make some big changes to family life. My role in the family changed, and the boys had to adapt to Mum not being able to do a lot of mum-type things.
Regardless of how much other people wanted to help, we had to make those changes ourselves.

So people and families in this situation need the space and understanding to do that.

The other major issue in all this is the attitude and motivation of the helper.
Most of us, when confronted with a ‘need’, want to help. We want to make it better. And if we do that that, we feel better ourselves.

But that creates all sorts of extra problems for the person or people receiving the ‘help’
In the early days of Rob’s illness, we had people bringing meals. A lovely idea, but they seldom stopped to ask what kind of meals would be helpful.
So we would have meals that the boys wouldn’t eat and Robyn couldn’t eat… and so the dogs had a fine feast!

We had one particular person desperate to come and vacuum once a week. Lovely idea, except that meant I had to make sure the house was basically tidy before they came, and then they would vacuum for half and hour before stopping, wanting a cup of tea and then talking for another hour.
Which had the combined effect of exhausting Rob more than doing the vacuuming herself would have done!

So, the golden rule for all helpers and potential helpers is:

Ask the person for people what would be helpful to them first, And don’t be upset if the answer doesn’t suit you. If you genuinely want to be helpful, it won’t bother you.
If it does bother you, ask yourself ‘why?’

We have reached the stage where so-called practical help (like meals, etc) are not helpful to us, but people still get offended when we politely decline.

Another important principal to remember is that visiting the unwell person may be a good thing to do. But it may not be as well.
So always ring first and check that it’s helpful and appropriate to visit. Don’t just drop in unannounced.

After dealing with chronic illness for years, we often feel very drained emotionally, and so we frequently engage in self protective behaviour. That can mean making time just for ourselves and immediate family, and choosing not to socialise very much (which Rob’s condition severely limits anyway).
We know that we are not alone in this, and again, it’s good for those working with, related to or seeking to help people who are chronically ill to understand this and realise it’s not a personal snub against them.

Reading back over this, there is nothing really about Christians and chronic illness, but that will be the focus of the next article in this series.

Please feed back your thoughts and comments below.