Cancer Diary: Irrational Decisions
Many of the decisions that that Carl made in the last few months of his cancer-riddled life were completely irrational. In some cases, I did not know enough about the situations to know that they were irrational; they did not seem right, but the contractors went along with Carl. After all, he was paying, so it was his decision even if irrational.
Examples?
He had the sump pump behind the house removed and the area filled with concrete. During the first tremendous rains -- California's 2023 crazy storm season -- we ended up with a backyard swimming pool. The plumber reinstalled the sump pump.
He set up three generators (one probably would have done) powered by a wind turbine (we do have a lot of wind here) to maintain electricity if the power went out for a long period of time. Yes, we are on top of an earthquake fault, but we had not lost power for more than a couple of hours -- ever. And have not lost it at all since. To power the generators, he ran a large cord across the dining room and living room, and into a closet whose door had to remain open. After he died, our handyman moved the cord below the house across the crawl space. Now, we can close the door and not trip over cord.
These are decisions he would not have made had his brain been working normally. Arguing with him at the time made no sense; he would not consider other opinions. Communicating with someone experiencing cognitive distortion is difficult at best, impossible at its closest to reality.
There were more such decisions. What they were does not matter. What does matter is not what I noticed -- the decisions did not make sense -- but what I failed to notice -- the reasons why the decisions did not make sense. Right before we got the final-stage metastatic cancer diagnosis, my daughter suggested a cognitive study, but before we could do that (not that he actually wanted to do that), he fell, and we found out the bad news.
We could have found out the news earlier, perhaps sufficiently earlier that there might have been greater hope for survival, had we realized that the brain tells us a lot about health. When the brain is functioning irrationally, it would be wise to find out what the body is doing that is should not be doing to which the brain is reacting. Wish we had had that kind of attention and foresight!
And there are physiological changes associated with some kinds of cancer in which too calcium circulates through the brain (an overly simplified description that cen be rectified by clicking on the link: hypercalcemia. Since bone cancer was one of the five cancers that had invaded Carl's body, we had to fight hypercalcemia on a near daily basis.
I would add that cognitive distortion does not only occur in cancer; it can happen under the influence of alcohol, as described by Treatment and Recover Systems.com, and even in new and stressful learning situations, as described by Leaver and Salyer in a chapter in Transformative Language Learning and Teaching.
For other Cancer Diary posts, click HERE.
Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page, Carl's Cancer Compendium, as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The CCC is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informative, cancer-related story -- and be open to guest posts: Cancer Diary.
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