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What do you think, how long will it take ....
(A) me to die?
(B) me to turn blind?
(C) my regurgitation to progress from moderate to severe?
Questions like this are almost universal in the minds of patients with chronic illnesses.
Why do they originate and how can one answer them?
They originate because the communication between a doctor and a patient is incomplete. When we doctors tell you the prognosis (i.e. the likely outcome) of a medical scenario, we are talking statistically, which means given a large group of patients, most would tend to behave along the expected lines. But statistic does not predict the fate of an individual in the same group!
This incomplete communication between a doctor and his patient leads to a lot of avoidable anxiety.
Finally to answer all such questions, I use the following illustration:
My hair is 10 percent grey (in reality the grey colour is barely visible!), can you tell me how long it will take it to be 100 percent grey?
You can't predict that.
So why worry?
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1 comment:
Dear Manish thanks for giving me such a wonderful example. It really was pragmatic. It might seem odd but I haven't felt really bad after a day or two and consider myself to be poised at this very moment. I guess there are some things in life that are dealt only when their time comes and there's no point in waiting so why don't we enjoy the juvenile moments we have right now :)
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