Transitioning...

Last week was a tough week for anyone whose been dealing with the "C" word.

Let's be brutally honest here, cancer not only assaults the individual fighting the disease, but it can render entire families and care giver networks straight into a dark sense of powerlessness. Especially when treatments can seem so difficult to get through. Especially when remission ends without warning and fear once again takes a leading role in thousands of what if scenarios.

Whatever your political affiliations, the public fight that Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow wage against cancer is the stuff of hero's. To fight bravely onward, even while constantly in the public eye, all the while being second guessed and scrutinized by the press, is a burden no cancer survivor should bear. But bear it they have-as have their caregiver networks. Suddenly these two public figures have gone from talking heads to fully human representations of every one's worst fears.

I've always liked the term "after care". It's generous use and application in the addiction-recovery world implies that while indeed life moves on after a major crash and burn, that does not mean that the need for gentle post recovery care will diminish. I often wonder why similar terms aren't used for those who have faced life threatening illnesses. Just because cancer or AIDS or a heart disease crisis turns from life or death to manageable or goes away altogether, a person is still forever changed. There is always a nagging fear that a health adversary might return. Such emotions also haunt everyone in the downstream support network. How do you talk about an invisible companion that will forever accompany one's life journey? How do you acknowledge those fears that silently linger on the tip of every one's tongue?

After care is not just about addiction but sure seems appropriate for anyone whose faced serious challenges, whose transitioned into a different place in their life, and who recognizes that despite advances in modern medicine life is always fatal. Remission is a word of healing. Recurrence is the stuff of ultimate nightmares. Aftercare is the scale that balances those two worlds and helps everyone involved manage this messy business of living.

In other words, aftercare is for everyone.