Developing A Grief Pill

The pharmaceutical industry is researching the development an anti-depressant pill for people who are grieving.

Hmmmmm....

My gut feeling when I first read this story about the availability of a so-called grief pill in The Washington Post was that it seemed rather predatory of the pharmaceutical industry to be focusing its scientific expertise and vast financial resources on people when they are at the most vulnerable and sometimes lowest points in their lives.

I vividly remember the competing emotions I felt after my husband died.  Raw pain and numbness.  Exhaustion and adrenaline.  On top of all that, I was taking care of my young son, working a full-time job and all I wanted was someone to tell me was how long all of this was going to last. Unfortunately, no one could tell me  the length of time it would take for me to process my grief.  I now understand that figuring out how to live without a loved one is really and truly different for each person.

 

Yup, I enthusiastically support the marketplace being open to offering the largest array of medical options possible, including pills,  to alleviate the physical and mental pain of whatever disease or condition people are experiencing.

 

However, on the other hand, it is as though the pharmaceutical industry is saying that something is definitely wrong with you when you are grieving; that grief is similar to having high levels of cholesterol; that grief is a condition or a disease that needs to be treated with chemicals when that is usually not be the case at all.

 

Grief is a normal and natural reaction to the loss of someone you loved and cared about and unfortunately, it's extremely painful.  Pills are not the first solution that comes to mind because whenever you read or talk to a doctor about how bad you feel when you are grieving, they usually advise you to be very careful where drugs and alcohol are concerned because either substance by themselves or taken together can easily become part of an unhealthy coping system. 

When you take all of those factors into consideration, I have to conclude that the government's approval of industry efforts to research, manufacture and distribute such a grief pill is a difficult call. 

I did not take any pills while grieving for my husband but I honestly can say that I did think about how it would have been fantastic to be able to take a pill that would block all of the pain I was constantly feeling.  My desire was very strong to make the pain stop.  And the idea that there might be a pill that would take the edge off of my pain would have made life a helluv a lot easier to live.

But I also know that at that point in my life I could very easily have become dependent on any pill that would have made me feel so good.  Somewhere inside me I knew that the last thing that I needed was to be doped up when I had so much responsibility.  I never went to my doctor and asked for a pain or anxiety prescription because I knew that eventually I was going to have to feel the raw sadness of my loss and find a way to get on the other side of it.

There are cases when people do need medical help with their grieving process and I know that this needs to be taken into consideration but I think medicine already exists to take care of it.

 

How do you feel about this issue?

 

Make up your own mind by reading this link to The Washington Post story:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/antidepressants-to-treat-grief-psychiatry-panelists-with-ties-to-drug-industry-say-yes/2012/12/26/ca09cde6-3d60-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story_3.html

Hair's To You

Today I am giving a huge shout-out and a huge hug to a person I know who has just finished an intense round of chemo treatments and is dealing with the loss of their hair.

 

This person is showing so much courage and positive thinking in their intense and aggressive fight with cancer.  This person also happens to be the third person I have known to lose their hair during chemo and I totally get why this stage is so traumatic: hair loss makes the cancer obvious and visible to others.

 

From talking to these people about experiencing their hair loss, the first instinct is denial.  Each person tells themselves it will not happen to them and then they want to hold on to every strand of hair they have.  Our society happens to see hair as health.  In fact, lots of hair is equivalent to good health and vitality.

 

So when your hair starts to fall out in clumps from chemotherapy, most people, men and women alike, want to start wearing a wig.  The women's wigs are really nice but the men's wigs have a really long way to go in looking like real hair.  Instead, I think the men should go for it and just shave their heads.  It's a very Steve Harvey/Bruce Willis look (Harvey and Willis are not cancer patients just to clarify) and I think most women think it's sexy.

Steve Harvey

 

 

Bruce Willis

 

Plus there is something empowering about taking the initiative to decide to shave your head when your hair is falling out or when you are facing cancer in general.  This exceptional person I am thinking of today now just takes his hat off and shows you right away what is going on and then continues to talk about the positive things he is doing while receiving treatments.

 

Chemotherapy drugs are super powerful medications that attack rapidly growing cancer cells.  Unfortunately, these same drugs also attack other rapidly growing cells in your body, particularly those in your hair roots.

 

But the good news is that hair loss is temporary.  It's going to grow back, no doubt about that.  It may be a different color and it may be a different texture, but it will be hair and it will be yours.

 

Of course it is easy for me to say what looks good because I am not a cancer patient and am not experiencing the turmoil of cancer's life and death decisions.  I have the luxury of standing back and saying this is what I would do if I were losing my hair.  If it were actually happening to me, I probably would feel distraught and very scared.

 

And so I salute all cancer patients who are in the hair loss phase of their treatment.  May you continue to be brave, strong and resilient in your battle for wellness. 

 

We are with you!  

Riding The Rollercoaster

Dear Readers:

Just as you may find yourself on an emotional roller coaster, so do I.

I have days, just as you do, when things don't go well and I feel as if I am treading water or even going backwards a bit.  Writing and sharing with you the ups and downs of daily life helps me and I hope it helps you.  When you read Cry, Laugh Heal, I hope you discover that you are not alone in your feelings of bereavement and your quest to rebuild a new life.

I certainly do not have it all together all the time and who knows when I will?  Some days I reach my goals and some days I don't.  Some days I feel I have it together and then some days I screw up.  I'm just like you.

I do believe it's important to try and move forward by starting a dialogue about what happens when you lose someone you love because it is not a mainstream subject.  It is the rare and special person who listens to you really talk about what is going on. 

Sometimes it's hard to explain exactly what I am feeling because it's such a mixture of emotions, like a ride on Cyclone pictured above.  I'm happy for someone else's joy but then that makes me think about what I used to have or I'm glad when something good happens to me but then I don't have anyone who will be as happy for me as my husband would be.  I usually call my son or other family members or my close friends but it's not the same because they have their own lives.

Which is perfectly normal but it still takes getting used to.

The roller coaster part of it is that I'm not aimlessly floating along. I work hard so I can get used to my new reality and I start to think that I am getting used to it but then something unexpected happens and suddenly I'm not used to it at all and then I feel that I'm starting over.

Is this making any sense?  I certainly hope so!

This is just my roundabout way of saying that the lines of communication need to stay open and we need to keep talking to each other about what happens when you lose a loved one because somewhere in the talking and the exchanging we can find a sense that it's going to be okay, even if it doesn't feel that way at the time.

Let's ride the rollercoaster together!