ABSTRACT
Life-threatening illness has become more prevalent than in the past. As populations age and medicine extends lives, the incidence of individuals living with incurable disease increases. To tune in to what survivors of life-threatening illness experience, get in touch with their feelings about sickness. The risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder for those who have experienced rape is about 49%, while the risk for a child diagnosed with life-threatening illness is only about 10.4%. Because diagnosis of life-threatening illness has, seemingly, no beginning or end, patients can become preoccupied with it and tend toward: continual study about the illness; fixation on symptoms and treatments and intensified self-care. Despite the way life-threatening illness creates feelings of lost control, survivors can have more of a sense of control than with other traumas because death and illness are a normal part of life.
