Download Appendix 2 – Quotes Perceptions Cognitive Appraisals and more Lecture notes Communication in PDF only on Docsity!
Appendix 2 – Quotes
Perceptions
Source of suffering: loss of function What is my worst suffering? I cannot walk, cannot drink, cannot eat, cannot sleep, cannot do this, cannot do that. This is my worst suffering (Patient 17) Source of suffering: depending on others The worst thing I feel is that I’m burdening a lot of people, giving them extra work. They have to spend extra time to come here. Everything that I need, I need them to do for me. (Patient 13) Source of suffering: family stress The effect of my sickness is mostly on my family. They need to take care of me and cook for me. I always feel sorry for them. They are busy and tired but they still need to take care of me. (Patient 1) Source of suffering: death and dying I’m not afraid of dying but I’m afraid of suffering. I don’t want to suffer. If my pain cannot be relieved or if it gets worse, I’d rather die. (Patient 12) Source of suffering: poor communication I argued with the doctor. She said, “I’ve seen worse cases than yours.” You have seen many cases, but you haven’t tried. Try not to eat one week and see what happens. (Patient 10) Source of suffering: hospital stay You cannot do anything. You feel depressed. You feel sleepy. Every morning, I just feel like I have nothing to do. I feel like I’m being trapped in the hospital. (Patient 2)
Cognitive Appraisals
Filtering: focusing on losses and filtering out positive experiences. First, you lose your hope. Then you lose your confidence. Then you feel like you have lost everything. You feel like you have lost everything because when you got this thing, maybe you will die one day. (Patient 1) Magnifying: magnifying the loss of ability to do many things to everything. Now I cannot do anything. I want to do but I cannot do. I get breathless. Last time I could do tough work. I drove a car. I even drove a lorry. I sent cargo. (Patient 16) Catastrophizing: catastrophizing that bad things were going to happen one after another. I kept on losing bit by bit. Firstly, I lost my left arm. Then, I could not walk far. I needed to lie down. Pain was everywhere for the whole day. It came suddenly. Everything came, nonstop. One by one, it is attacking me. I know I am going to die, but I just don’t want to die like this. (Patient 3) Generalizing: generalizing the lack of help from family to lack of help from everyone. It is like nobody can help me. It is really suffering. I do not know how to explain it. Lying down here, I need others to help me. (Patient 14) Blaming: blaming the delay as the cause of disease progression. They couldn’t make decision promptly. They couldn’t give me a strong treatment to treat my disease. It’s being delayed and delayed. (Patient 17) Split-thinking: wishing to stay functionally independent or die. I don’t want others to take care of me until the end. I hope I can get better and I can deal with these problems myself. If one day I really cannot handle these problems, I wish doctors can help to relieve my suffering. That means to end my life. (Patient 17)
Should-thinking: thinking one should do and try many things in life before dying. Actually, I am not scared of dying. How to say? It’s like I haven’t done many things, then I have to die. Do you understand this feeling? It’s like I haven’t done many things and I haven’t tried many things in my life, then suddenly I have to die. (Patient 1)
Hope and the Struggles with Acceptance
Hope to be cured Before my surgery I hoped I could recover after the removal of my bladder. I hoped to continue with my normal life. But I didn’t know the reality was not as simple as I thought. (Patient 17) Hope to live longer I know my disease is terminal. My situation is hopeless. But I hope my life can be prolonged a bit. I hope if my life can be prolonged for one day then I will have one extra day to live. I hope I can see more people. I can see the world. I hope I can extend my life one day at a time. (Patient 14) Hope to be able to take care of oneself I don’t want others to take care of me until the end. I hope I can get better and I can deal with these problems myself. (Patient 17) Hope to have quality of life Of course the disease cannot be cured. But we can talk about prolonging. And then, prolonging, not just prolonging by hanging on drips and lying on hospital beds, but prolonging by making sure that there is still quality of life. (Patient 11) Hope that family member would not feel so sad If the days really come, I hope that those around me will not be so sad. (Patient 19) Hope to have a peaceful death There is no hope for recover. And it is very painful. Is there a reason to continue to prolong this suffering? I would rather end these days of suffering. (Patient 17) Hopelessness I feel hopeless. I don’t want to take medications. Sometimes I feel lonely. No one knows my pain. Maybe they can see, they know, or see something, but they can’t hundred percent understand what is happening inside me. (Patient 12) Difficulty in accepting the disease I cannot accept the disease. Why is this happening to me? It is terminal as soon as it is diagnosed. I don’t have any clue before that. (Patient 14) Difficulty in accepting incurability At the moment, with the current technology, they don’t have the medication to cure the cancer. What they have is only to control it, or maybe to help me to live a little bit longer, but not really to cure it, to cure one hundred percent. This makes me very sad. (Patient 12) Difficult in accepting change in quality of life Last time I could go to work, come back and look after my children. I cooked by myself. I ate. It’s a happy life. Now, I come to stay in the hospital. I have pain all the time. The doctors come and inject me here and there. They want to give me a drip but they cannot see my veins. It’s a life of suffering! (Patient 6) Difficulty in accepting help I think I am burdening my family members. My father has to take leave to send me to the hospital. My mother has to take care of me. By right, I should be the person who is working and earning money for the family. But I cannot do anything because of my current condition. And I need others to take care of me. It shouldn’t be this way and I cannot accept this. (Patient 19)
Wondering what have I done to deserve this Certain days can be very bad to you. You think that life is not worth it. What have you done wrong? It’s like God has abandoned you… Sometimes you find that the question you ask, there is no answer. You ask, ‘Why?’ Everybody wants to know why. The more you ask, the more questions come out. (Patient 4) Wondering how long one can live After that, when things get more confirmed, you get angry, frustrated. You get scared, because nobody can tell you how long you have left to live. Like for my case, all I know is, it is terminal. (Patient 11)
