The 5 Stages of Grief

When I was 17 I went to nursing school and about half way through determined that my talents lay elsewhere. I'm 55 and not sure where those talents lie yet. Anyway, one of the many, many reasons I left was because of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. An expert on the process of dying, they drove us in a bus to hear her talk about death and the five stages of grief. I was so inspired that I bought and devoured her book and could hardly wait to deal with my first dying patient.

Unfortunately, my first-and last-experience with death as a student nurse was preparing a body for the morgue. The inspiration of Kübler-Ross went flying out the window when confronted with the reality of a dead body. But I always remembered the five stages. Especially since Bob Fosse used it so cleverly several years later in All That Jazz. But I digress.

I have cancer, and I'm handling it quite well aside from brief moments of utter panic where I worry about the fact that I no longer have any good jewelry to leave my niece, or my insurance company will refuse to pay for my treatment because, let's face it, I'm just not worth the bother, or even worse my parents will be stuck dealing with the upside down mortgage on my condo. Today it dawned on me why I am such a rock. This isn't really happening.

Tomorrow I am having an MRI and they will discover this is all a mistake. For those of you not familiar with the 5 stages, the first stage is denial.