Coping

“How is Casper coping?”
“How are you coping?”
“Are you coping?”
“You seem to be coping”
“I don’t think I could cope”
“I hope you are coping”
“We’re just about coping”
“I’m not coping very well”
“I can’t cope”

These are all things that are said to or by people in our situation often, I imagine; I know I’ve heard all of these or variations thereof over the last few weeks, some of them from my own mouth.

What is “not coping”, is the question? Not coping, when it’s your child – your baby – who is ill, isn’t an option I can countenance, or even really comprehend. Could you run away? Abandon your baby? Abandon your ‘well’ child? Abandon your spouse and leave them to cope alone?

I am lucky to be unable to comprehend what not coping in this context would be, I suppose. We have all sorts of support and resilience on our side. I hope no one goes through what we’re going through and really cannot cope. But I am sure that families, marriages, and mental states have broken down in similar circumstances.

In many ways, what we’re coping with isn’t as bad as what some people are coping with. When you spend a lot of time in hospitals – paediatric wards, oncology wards, acute wards – you see suffering that is invisible most of the time in the outside world.

Most people – I hesitate to say ‘all’ but I’m tempted – cope with at least something most of the time. Maybe not their child having cancer-not-cancer, but other things. Things that you need to cope with for your entire life, things that you did not choose to live with but have to live with nonetheless. Arthritis. Diabetes. Alcoholism. Depression. Asthma. Ruined knees. Anxiety. Spinal injuries. Bipolar. High blood pressure. Eczema. Epilepsy. Allergies. Crohn’s. Alzheimer’s. Cystic Fibrosis. Patriarchy. Late period consumer capitalism. Brexit. The rise of popular fascism. I am not being facetious with anything in this list.

“You can cope”
“You are coping”
“You’re coping amazingly”