Terminal Diagnosis and the Question of Prognosis

As intelligent human beings, we know and understand that we can not live forever, we are not strangers to suffering and death, however as long as we are healthy, we do not think of the inevitability of our own death, and even if we do, we prefer to believe that it will not happen until our dotage. After all, there are so many things we want to do in our lives and we have many plans for the future.

There is nothing that can prepare us for the shock and devastation of a terminal diagnosis and the knowledge that we can no longer take our lives, or the life we share with our loved ones for granted. Terminal diagnosis usually comes with a prognosis (Estimated time of survival) and this intensifies our turmoil. It is one thing to accept that your life is limited it is another to be given a time in which it is expected to end.

Once given a prognosis, it is impossible not to begin counting down the days remaining. Furthermore, the beginning of each new month is seen as bringing you ever closer to the expected time of demise, causing feelings of fear and dread. This has a huge impact on the quality of day-to-day life.

The irony is, that prognosis is only an estimate of other people