Episode 50: Facing Your Mortality and Living with an Uncertain Future
In this episode, we welcome back a previous guest and friend, Katie Coleman. This time, we dive into facing one’s mortality and how to grapple with the uncertainty of living with a cancer diagnosis. We get into pre-diagnosis thoughts on mortality and how perspectives shifted after diagnosis. Katie also sheds light on some of the silver linings of being forced to confront your own mortality: helping you accept the inevitable, prioritizing what’s important, and guiding you to the road of self-discovery.
You can listen to (or watch) the previous episode with Katie here.
Key Highlights:
- Initially a cancer diagnosis triggers fears and uncertainties about mortality, but acceptance of mortality leads to a rewarding change of perspective and even a fulfilling life. Encountering death transforms life by influencing priorities and perspectives.
- As a result of the shift in perspective, facing your own mortality may negatively impact bonds outside the cancer community. Feelings of isolation and not fitting in are common, particularly in situations dominated by small talk.
- Finding a balance between personal fulfillment and social interactions is challenging but crucial. Prioritizing meaningful activities and relationships is important for a fulfilling life.
About our guest:
Katie Coleman is a patient advocate who was diagnosed with a rare stage IV kidney cancer in Dec 2020, at the age of 29. She has shared her diagnosis publicly on social media to spread awareness and to advocate for others with kidney cancer and rare diseases. Since being diagnosed, she has also founded a non-profit, started a podcast and is currently writing a memoir. You can read more about Katie on her website at www.katiekickscancer.com.
Key Moments:
2:52: "That felt like one of the worst things that could ever happen. Through my diagnosis, I've had different prognosis' at different points of time. I'm very thankful for where I'm at currently, and I'm doing really well. But through that process and having to accept and kind of think about my own mortality, some of my mindset around that shifted, which I'm sure we'll get into. My relationship with the thought of being given five years now is very different than it was when I was first diagnosed. But I had to do a lot of that learning on my own. And it's something that I wish more people talked about because it's a very, very hard topic to try to go through on your own and you can get very lost in despair and get yourself stuck in the process, I feel like."
17:17: “If I could take back my cancer diagnosis, I wouldn't. Even if that means I only have two years of life left, I would not take it back still, because I have lived more in the last two and a half years than I lived in the entire 29 that I lived prior to that. And cancer really sucks. And I would probably regret saying that if I wasn't feeling well, I don't really know, but I do know that like where I'm at currently. It's just, it is life changing, but sometimes in all the best ways.”
41:25 “I will say that there were a couple of things that were very monumental for me in accepting my own mortality and the way that it changed the way that I live my life – part of them was losing friends… It wasn't until I started losing a few friends, and I noticed that they had gone from being able to walk their dog down the street one week to, like, two weeks later, they had passed – it came out of nowhere for me. When I had seen that and I'd seen it a couple of times with several different friends that I had through the community, it made me realize how much you need to capitalize on the time that you have now."
49:25: “I noticed that I had a harder time listening to people gossip or hearing kind of just the everyday like little nuances to life that happen… it's so hard to explain because I don't pass judgment on anybody in those situations. That is what life is. I think that's just how people live their life and I don't blame anyone for that. I just think that once you've gone through something like cancer or something that kind of shifts your perspective, it's hard to sometimes sit in those situations because it feels negative or draining for me anyways. At the same time, I also am sitting in those situations thinking, “I'm not gonna say anything, I'm not gonna change anything because absolutely nothing, if I was in this situation before, absolutely nothing would change the way that I thought about it other than what I went through.’”
YouTube Chapters:
00:00-5:40 Introduction and Pre-Diagnosis Thoughts on Mortality
05:41-11:10 Fear and Anger After Diagnosis
11:11-18:03 Your Mortality in the Eyes of Peers
18:04-27:47 The Radical Acceptance of Mortality
27:48-33:32 Legacy Planning, Wills, etc.
33:32-44:33 Loved Ones and Their Mortality’s Impact
44:44-01:05:57 The Negative Impact in Social Settings
01:05:58-01:09:21 Finding Balance/Wrap Up
YouTube Tags:
Manta Cares, mortality, death, dying, cancer, stage 4 cancer, cancer stages life expectancy, fear of death, acceptance, dealing with death
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