/ 25 November 2016

Up – a metaphor for being alive

Professor Freddie Crous says that receiving a transplant has given him an 'appreciative spirit'
Professor Freddie Crous says that receiving a transplant has given him an 'appreciative spirit'

Up – A metaphor for being alive

Freddie Crouse

The prescribed book for a speed-reading course I took as a first year student was Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. In spite of his ordeal in Nazi concentration camps Frankl made a case for tragic optimism, which challenges one to be, and remain, optimistic in the face of life’s tragedies.

Fast-forward 16 years. I’m in hospital, with a doctor by my bedside. He tells me that my kidneys have failed. To stay alive, I have to receive dialysis, until a donor kidney becomes available for transplant. As he spoke, a huge boulder appeared as if from nowhere in my mind’s eye, and came rolling towards me as if to crush me. Then I recalled Frankl’s words that meaning can be found in the darkest of times. I observed myself stepping aside and the boulder passing me by.

Later that night, as I re-lived the day’s experiences of the agony of having a catheter inserted into my upper torso to be hooked up to a dialysis machine for this first time, I was astonished to find myself without fear or anguish. Somehow I had accepted my situation. I had skipped the expected stages of denial, anger, bargaining and depression, which someone in my position can expect to experience.

When I entered the ward for my second round of dialysis I was shocked. Asleep, their faces discoloured, covered in white sheets and blankets, with blood-filled tubes connecting them to their machines, the other patients looked like corpses. I ignored the nurse’s instruction to lie down to prepare for the procedure: I could not betray the transformed image of myself as being “up” — a metaphor for being alive. I asked for a chair so that I could at least sit up.

Soon I was discharged. Stepping into the comforting highveld sun after days stuck in hospital, I was overwhelmed by intense feelings of appreciation and gratitude. These feelings were euphoric, resembling an out-of-body experience. I had to remind myself that these did not come from outside, but from within my body. Nevertheless, its outcome was a warm sense of elevation which settled in my chest, comforting me for eight months of dialysis until I received a kidney from my amazing brother, Dawie. We recently celebrated its 21st birthday.

My account confirms research findings that trauma, while invariably stressful, can be a growth experience when embraced. Positive emotions of appreciation and gratitude buffer one against negative emotions. As strengths they enable one to transcend adverse circumstances, validating Frankl’s theory of tragic optimism. The warm feelings of elevation that had comforted me during months of dialysis as a day-patient were probably the result of my vagus nerve being activated.

Since the transplant I have made an effort to approach life in general, and my work in particular, with an appreciative spirit. It has stood me in good stead.

Freddie Crous is a Professor of Industrial Psychology at the University of Johannesburg