Should you "accept" your illness, or keep trying to heal?

Q: how to know when to accept the hand you’re dealt health wise vs keep trying to heal / improve 

A: So my guru has four extremely extreme chronic illnesses. He has Parkinson's; his lungs are collapsed, just to give you an example among other things. He's never had a good day of health since he was 40 years old. He's 85 now so for the last 11 years I've been watching him be sick. But something that he has been unrelenting about for the last 11 years is continuously trying to feel better.

He's not just lying, rolling over, and accepting his illness in the sense of "oh I shouldn't really do anything about this." He's always doing stuff about this. Recently at the ashram, he's been waking me up at 6:00 in the morning every Friday morning when I wake up there because he's using this really loud nebulizer to put herbs in his lungs (because he's having a really terrible time breathing.) He also gets an IV twice a week to try to help with his Parkinson's symptoms. He's also always doing red light therapy. He's always doing stuff... and some of it does shift the needle for sure. He was told by his doctor 5 years ago that in 5 years, he would be in a wheelchair from Parkinson's. And she's not. But while it's better than doing nothing .... it's clear that there's a lot of stuff he's dealing with that no amount of health care will ever be able to fix for him.

My point: for the last 11 years, I've seen him embodying this yoga of "we're gonna work tirelessly to improve the situation but at the end of the day... you have to accept the outcome." That's where the yoga always is. The yoga is always in "can you accept the outcome?"

So, what does it actually mean to accept the hand that you've been dealt health-wise? What does that actually mean? Does it mean just rolling over and doing nothing or are there things that you could be consistently doing that could for sure help to shift the needle or at least keep you comfortable? Are there interventions you can take so that you're more comfortable even if it's not improving your condition in the big picture? On some level you need to take responsibility for yourself because if you don't try to shift the needle, you become a problem for someone else (yikes, I said it.)

There’s always more to do. And as somebody who has lived with chronic illness for a very long time, I can see how there is sometimes this depressed, resigned, existentially fucked up part of me that just wants to suffer.

That’s the part of me that says, “Well, I should just accept this disease and not do anything about it,” even though there are plenty of interventions I could continue to try.

If I’m honest, I can admit that I haven’t tried everything. So what part of me is complaining that I have? It’s probably a part of me that is very tired of being in this situation (real,) but there might also be a tricky little part of my mind that is strangely comfortable suffering at this level because it is getting something out of it. That's just my story and my self-reflection. Take what resonates and leave the rest.

Sometimes a tricky part of the mind wants to keep you small (and sick.) It's worth looking at that.

That’s just my opinion, and that’s my answer for that.

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