I have a brain tumor, gastroparesis, and Bipolar. I have recently had surgery for my gastroparesis, and doctors are going back and forth about my various medical conditions. My main stomach doctor tells me that he has found a cure for my gastroparesis, but my other doctors tell me that I should expect to see no improvement. It’s basically just a bunch of uncertainty, and I’m having a lot of trouble managing my expectations. This situation seems to surface a lot with my health issues, both the gastroparesis and the brain tumor. I currently am at no risk for dying.
As weird as this sounds, I’ve developed a lot of control of my emotions; one of the perks of being forced to adapt to a mental illness. I see two routes I can go down:
1. Become enthusiastic and think positively about a cure. After all, the placebo effect is strong, and sometimes a good attitude can boost your body’s defenses.
2. Be guardedly optimistic and realistic. I have many times been let down when a doctor’s “cure” failed to materialize. As someone who struggles with mental illness, it is especially difficult to endure these disappointments when I have allowed my hopes to get so high.
What should I do? If anyone else here has had any experience with uncertainty in a medical context (or really any context), I’d love to hear about how you handled it.
