The secret of health and happiness lies in successful adjustment to the ever-changing conditions on this globe; the penalties for failure in this great process of adaptation are disease and unhappiness.
—HANS SELYE
From the beginning of recorded time, civilizations have reported illness and death among their bereaved. It is only within the past forty years, however, that we have been able to identify the link: grief causes stress, and prolonged stress can cause disease and death.
A Personal Experience with Grief-Related Stress—Dianne’s Story
No matter how busy or rushed our lives were, supper was the time for my family to gather around the table and leisurely discuss our day. Even when I was very young, my dilemmas were an intricate part of the dialogue. “Well, when I was a little girl like you,” my dad often responded, unable to hold back his grin, “I had the same problem.”
“What did you do, Daddy?” I would ask with an anticipatory giggle.
His chuckle let us know that he was about to create an outrageous tale. If, however, he pushed his plate to the side, we knew that he would draw upon reality. Either way, his responses were always funny, nurturing, and thought-provoking. Dad often ended our family discussions with his philosophy, “Honey, everything changes. Nothing lasts forever.” I always walked away from the table feeling confident that I, like every human being, could resolve my own problems, in my own way and time.
My mother used to declare that my “easygoing” personality was the result not of nurture but of nature. “You were born with such a struggle-free spirit,” she explained, “that nothing ever upset you. You have always been calm, no matter what the circumstances.” During college, psychological examinations indicated that I easily adapted to change and was not prone to stress, anxiety, or emotional disorders. Nevertheless, when I was thirty-eight years old, my adaptability was put to the test as never before.
Nineteen eighty-four had been typical in all ways except one: my gynecological problems required that I have a hysterectomy. While unwrapping new bed slippers for my stay in the hospital, I surprised even myself by suddenly announcing, “I’m going to drive my car to the medical center tomorrow.”
“That’s ridiculous!” a friend scolded as she tried to reason with me.
“I don’t know why,” I persisted, “but I have this strange feeling that an emergency will come up. I’m going to need my car handy so I can leave quickly.” Although I did not understand my premonition, I remained steadfast and drove the twenty-five miles to Houston alone.
My surgery was scheduled for 7:30 A.M., and at 6:45 a nurse and two aides entered my room, pushing a gurney. “Here,” snapped the nurse, holding out a cup.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Valium,” she answered. “It will prepare you for the trip to the operating room.”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Oh, you have to take it,” she said. “Just going into the surgical area is scary, so all patients must take a sedative.”
“No, I’m fine,” I said, adding, “and I have to remain in full control of my senses.”
We argued back and forth until one aide good-naturedly interrupted, “Come on! Come on! Let’s get going! Can’t keep the good doctor waiting any longer.” Just then, the telephone rang.
Although reluctant to transfer the receiver to my hand, the grim-eyed nurse finally said, “It’s St. Joseph’s Hospital, in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Your father is in their coronary care unit and a surgeon wants to speak with you.” Not surprised that a crisis was developing elsewhere, I took the phone.
A male voice spoke as if dictating a memo, “Mr. Davidson’s condition is critical. He survived a stroke early this morning. It appears that he is going into cardiac arrest. He is being prepped for surgery now. It is doubtful that he will leave the hospital. If he does, he will never be the same.”
Tossing the receiver to the nurse, I leaped from the gurney, threw on my clothes, and dashed to my car. The doctor was correct when he said Dad would never be the same, but, then, my life would never be the same again either.
By the time I arrived at the hospital in Hot Springs, doctors had performed the surgery. When I saw Dad, I was numb. The incision on his chest looked as if an animal had ripped him open. More horrifying was to see him laboring for every breath. Because he had always been an optimist, his words, “I’m going to die,” frightened me.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, wanting to prevent his terrible prophecy.
“It’s my time, honey,” he said tearfully, trying not to sob.
Oh, God, please help us, my heart begged, as I watched him drift back to sleep. I found a telephone and left a detailed message for my husband, Joe, in Houston. Anxiety and dread accompanied my exhausted body to the waiting-room chair. Staring straight ahead, I nevertheless saw nothing. Minutes passed before I became aware that the pay phone next to me was ringing.
Joe had consulted with a distinguished heart surgeon at the Texas Medical Center, and a crisis team was preparing for our arrival. While I checked Dad out of St. Joseph’s Hospital, two physical therapists set up an oxygen tank and a makeshift bed in the back of my car. Within an hour we were on Interstate 20, bound for Houston. All during the eight-hour drive, my eyes vaulted back and forth between his face in my rearview mirror and the road before us. Smothered by an incalculable alarm, I feared that my dad would die before we could reach the hospital.
Finally, at 2:00 A.M., I saw EMERGENCY illuminated in red just ahead. Like lifeguards preparing to dive into the water, members of the medical team surrounded our car as we approached the designated canopy. “Joe Davidson?” they asked, opening every door as they paced beside us. The team shifted Dad to a gurney and wheeled him into an evaluation room and then straight to an emergency quadruple bypass operation. The surgery was successful and his prognosis was for a full recovery. Recovery, however, was not meant to be.
The third of June, some six weeks later, brought a double celebration. It was Dad’s birthday and we were cutting the cake when his doctors stepped through the door. “We’re just in time to give you our gift,” they announced. “You can go home in the next day or so.”
We enjoyed a grand celebration and then wondered why Dad could not go home that day. His doctors had left, so I asked a nurse. “Mr. Davidson has one problem,” she replied. “Before he can be discharged, he must sleep through the night. Right now, his days and nights are mixed up. He gets up in the middle of the night and wants to talk, or write, or do something.”
“My dad is a Baptist minister,” I tried to reason with her, “and that’s his lifestyle. He always sleeps a few hours in the evening and then gets up to write his sermons after midnight. He’s simply on his schedule.”
“He isn’t leaving until he sleeps through the night,” she said and walked away. I anxiously pleaded with other nurses and the doctors on call, but when every effort failed, I left messages for Dad’s internist.
“I’ll be back first thing in the morning to get you out of here,” I assured my dad later that night, “and they can’t stop me.”
The next morning I was met outside his room by the director of nurses, hospital administrators, dad’s surgeons, and an anesthesiologist. “There was an accident last night,” an administrator began. “A nurse gave your dad a full dose of Valium at 9:30, at 10:30, and again at midnight.” The anesthesiologist chimed in, frowning and shaking his head in disgust, “Your dad was given enough Valium to kill a young healthy man in his twenties. I don’t understand how he can still be alive.”1
The horror did not sink in until I was escorted into Dad’s room. His face was frozen in agony—he must have known what was happening at the time but been unable to prevent it. Eighty torturous days later, on the twenty-second of August, at 3:30 A.M., my dad’s fight came to an end. I received the call I had been dreading: “I’m sorry, but your dad just died.”
A long-stemmed red rose from Dad’s casket was just browning around the edges when, once again, at 3:30 in the morning, I was startled by the ringing of our telephone. The news was devastating: my sister-in-law, Peggy, had just ended her own life.
Until this point in my life, the word stress had held no real significance, but now I heard it reverberating all around me. “You’ve had far too much stress,” “You’ll get cancer from this much stress,” “No one can survive this much stress.” My mother, friends, doctors, and co-workers reinforced their warnings with horrific stories.
After my weight had gone down to eighty-three pounds, one of my college professors lightly remarked from across the room, “Hey, Dianne, a new class is being offered this semester—Stress 101. Go sign up!”
“Who, me?” I asked.
“I’m serious,” he said, holding up the spring schedule for me to see. “You must take this class.” Although I did not feel the need, I respected his insight enough to comply.
For a college course, the first class began in an unusual way. “I want each of you to say your name,” the professor said, “and then in one sentence answer this question: What is the most stressful thing in my life right now?” Words from overburdened hearts began to flow.
“I’m Faye,” one young mother said, choking back her tears, “and my five-year-old son is in the hospital dying of leukemia.”
The lady beside her took the question. “I’m Julia. My husband died six weeks ago from cancer.”
“My name is Greg,” the school’s star athlete spoke up, “and my friend was killed in a motorcycle accident.”
“My brother was accidentally electrocuted…” began a twenty-year-old, too tearful to continue.
By the final introduction, it was evident that every student in the room was grieving over the death, or impending death, of someone close.
As softly as a whisper, the professor eased her small frame onto the corner of her desk. Her silk skirt draped over the edge like an expensive tablecloth. “I don’t usually begin the first class this way,” she said, pausing to look around the room. Leaning forward, she continued, “But since all of you are dealing with loss, well, this is important for you to understand. The moment you hear catastrophic news, your brain releases powerful chemicals. They circulate through every cell of your body, and within minutes you’ve been affected all the way down to the molecular level. It takes approximately six weeks for your body to eliminate those toxins. If, however, you have another crisis within that six-week period, your brain releases another hit. The brain’s initial reaction is only the beginning.”
As she diagrammed and described the dynamics of stress throughout the semester, I finally understood. Although I was given months to prepare for my dad’s death, the moment I heard “I’m sorry, but your dad just died,” chemicals spontaneously and instantly released within my brain. From there, they continued to circulate throughout my body. Then I received another “hit” the moment I heard that my sister-in-law had died by suicide. Before those chemicals were completely flushed through my system, another circumstance caused another stress reaction. Although I knew that I was struggling mentally and spiritually with many changes, unbeknownst to me my body was in a perpetual state of stress. My heart and thyroid gland were being seriously affected.
That class was fundamentally life-changing because until then I had ignored the term stress. Furthermore, I was accustomed to the turmoil inside my body; therefore, like most people, I ignored that too. But once I understood, I began to transform every stressful circumstance into a positive driving force. If this book had been available, my health challenges could have been avoided.