Dr Yousuf Ali Al mulla
At some point during COVID -19 pandemic, did any of us ask what would happen if he was infected and somehow had serious complications afterwards and even forced to enter the hospital.
Certainly, your greatest concern here will be for your family and your children; however you may make sure of their safety during the period of your illness by having someone from your family or any other trusted person to take care for them.
But let’s delve into your story or our story with the infection, after you entered the hospital, then you realized that your condition is more serious and this will concern you so that you wonder ... Who will pay the bills, who will meet the needs of the mother during my absence. Who and who? Do I hope the doctors will take maximum measures and put me on a ventilator if needed without delay?
Will there come a time when maybe my family will be required to make decisions about my health or even my death? Perhaps here you realize that you have failed in the simplest planning to prepare your son, daughter, or person entrusted with it for the responsibilities that you will face if you fall ill or pass away.
Interestingly, year 2020 has shown us all the value of being prepared. In the early days of the pandemic, people developed fear and anxiety, at which for instance people filled their homes, with the presence of uncertainty of the lockdown measures that we lived through. In fact here the truth, planning for uncertainty is undoubtedly a better strategy and it is probably the greatest gift you can give to your family.
When you sit down to imagine a serious health crisis and the instructions that you want to provide to your responsible son or daughter for example, will it be frustrating in your opinion? Are you not with me with a realistic look - if I can say - that it will be interesting and you with your advance directive writing are sitting to study life? I believe it is an opportunity to think and direct ahead of your life, but perhaps the life of your family, so you think about your true worth and look deeply into your hopes of aging well and what makes life worth living.
Supposedly if you imagine with me, you take your time to prepare a plan for your children or your family and perhaps it is your will, while you are absorbed in quiet thinking. Almost your mind saying I have written my instructions for making healthy decisions, I wanted to provide instructions for situations that I may not imagine now…And here you are completing your narration ,where your mind saying I think the best way to do this is to include my thoughts about what I value in the life that I have lived so far. Hence what I want my children to think about as one way or the other, the day will come and they will find difficult choices about the quality of life they will live.
Therefore, with regard to today’s challenge and every day, I encourage you to seize the opportunity as we learned in 2020, to prepare by establishing a healthy direction, but beyond that in all areas of life in support of your family in times of crisis. Thus, it is important to practice that one becomes more aware of one’s mood and thoughts, so enabling children for example, to build their resilience and manage their stress.
However, you undoubtedly agree with me here, going back will help you build on the lessons you have learned and you may even discover some hidden positive habits that you did not realize you started with. It is really nice to build plans and prepare for what is coming and probably the most beautiful here is to think about the lessons of the past year, in addition to how many good habits were created or developed from discovering new ways of practicing sport, for example to strengthening friendships that have arisen through some social media platforms and learning to cook healthy meals or making ourselves responsible for taking care of others.
And now, with the distribution of vaccines with an end to the pandemic on the horizon, you do not need to abandon these changes, instead try to build on them and even create plans that were healthy and social for your family and yourself, beside adding a moment of reflection at the end of each day as well…During this time, your family can think about the day and pave the way for a better tomorrow.
Dr.Yousuf Ali Al Mulla is a physician, medical innovator and writer. For any queries regarding the contents of the article can be contacted at: [email protected]
