above: Want some flesh-fries in your body with that healing physics?
Today is the Buddha's birthday. This day is recognized by many branches of that faith as the anniversary of when the religion's founder obtained enlightenment. Can cancer patients and their caregivers receive real nurture from unfamiliar religious faiths, different than their own?
In my family's case, we were honored, pleased, and gladdened to hear of care-giving actions taken on our behalf by friends of various faiths. One school-mom contact included my loved one in a hand-written prayer that she left at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Another lit a candle at Notre Dame in Paris.
Buddhism teaches, among other tenets, that (bad news) suffering is inherent to the human condition, but that (good news) meditation and other tools offer a path away from unnecessary confusion and pain. Perhaps that belief can be a reminder to your patient and you that mentality is, or can be, somewhat separate from physicality, in the cancer path. Maybe meditation (secular or religious) can mediate the immediate queasiness some patients feel when they're wheeled in for external beam radiation. And secular tools like guided imagery, placing happy photographs where your patient lives, and aromatherapy, may ease the mind of your loved one.
above: Pain and gain, blended? A dose of radioactive samarium-153 (a radiopharmaceutical) is injected into the catheter and hence body of my loved one, then flushed with attached several saline syringes, to assure all that radiation gets delivered, and not diluted while hiding in the initial syringe
Here's hoping that your patient-buddy and you avoid the decay, half-life, and eerieness of radiation fears in your health journey, that they and you glow with radiant joy, and that y'all are all blessed by an en-lightened load in your travels.
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