When Faced with Chronic Disease: Understand It, Accept It, Adapt to It

The two longest-lived elders in Chinese academia, Zhou Youguang and Professor Zheng Ji, were both tuberculosis patients; they lived to 112 and 111. Besides TB, Zhou had depression and prostate problems; Zheng had chronic gastric disease and three surgeries. None of this affected their longevity.

Many patients, once diagnosed with a chronic disease, live in constant dread as though about to die. Most truly terminal patients I meet are less panicked than those with nonfatal chronic illnesses. Some merely have rhinitis yet bewail their lot. More than half of chronic diseases cannot be cured; rather than exhaust oneself treating them, learn to coexist with them.

Modern technology detects problems once invisible. Many small pulmonary, thyroid, and breast nodules show up on CT, PET/CT, and MRI that older scans missed. Most are benign, yet their psychological impact is not small; an acquaintance once fainted from fright at a nodule on her checkup and was rushed to hospital.

Likewise, many fear hepatitis B virus and H. pylori. China has over 100 million HBV carriers; most live out their natural lives.

A recent Silicon Valley survey found 40% of tech workers felt modern high technology harms life. For the psychologically fragile, medical high tech can be harmful. Such people must train their adaptability and resilience, and not fuss over every trivial detail.

Humans cannot live apart from the environment. The Earth is no longer fully habitable, but until it is perfected we must adapt. Survival of the fittest: to live amid problems one must toughen up, becoming resilient under pressure.

We live in a high-tech age and cannot return to antiquity; we must adapt. Disease was understood so as to live better, not to ruin life.

Falling ill is not terrifying. Our bodies host countless viruses and bacteria that coevolved with us; they want a long-term meal ticket, not to kill us. As hosts, we must learn to compromise and coexist.

Most chronic diseases are not fatal. At least a thousand genes in our genome come from germs, some beneficial like gut probiotics. Understand them rationally, adapt to them, do not fear them.