A Happy Life

Today I saw S. He is about 70. He was in great health, playing tennis several times a day when he just slipped. He was in a grocery store where there was a wet floor. He landed right on his sciatic nerve. It was seriously injured. He had very intense pain for a few months, but that resolved. Now he is left with pretty severe weakness. It's been a year already. He can walk, but not quite right. He certainly can't play tennis. It's frustrating for him, because all of a sudden, for no good reason you can't do what you used to do. The very abrupt onset of things is hard enough. What makes it worse, though, is the completely ridiculous nature of the injury. It was preventable and it was caused by pure stupidity (making the floor wet). He's going to sue the grocery store. He's really upset with them. I hope his nerve is going to heal. It could be two years before he has full recovery. But there is a reasonable chance that he won't ever be quite right from this. The good thing, I think, is that there isn't any pain with this. He was worse off when he was suffering with that really severe nerve pain.
I saw MW. She is going to be 80 in two weeks. She is very seriously obese, and has neuropathy and strokes and severe fatigue, and (I think) sleep apnea. She was very happy today. She usually is very happy. Her husband is a patient of mine because he has CIDP which is a severe form of neuropathy. He also has severe heart disease. He has a lot of weakness, and he can't walk very far. They aren't going to do anything fancy for her birthday. I told them that they need to go to Las Vegas (she likes it there). But I don't think that they will.
MW told me that a lot of the people at the nursing home where they were have no sense of humor. They're just not happy. She thinks it's because they didn't have a good life. They aren't happy with the way it worked out. She asked me if I'm happy with my life and my children. Because if I'm not, then I should change it. S. doesn't talk about that, because he's a business man who has little time for that sort of talk. But he leads by example. He just acts like it. Everything is there for the living. He loves his work, so he works a lot.
I don't think that we should be happy and enjoy things to avoid regrets in the nursing home. That's because there are sometimes sudden changes. We may not make it there. Not everyone gets to be eighty. In fact, not everyone gets to be ten. But we do have an obligation to make sure that we're making ourselves happy. Some religions stress the importance of service and sacrifice as the path to holiness. Most have some emphasis on ascetism, or at least charity. It's not that I think we should be hedonistic. But clearly happiness is essential to health. It's essential to the ability to tolerate illness. I don't think that it's unholy to be happy. We just need to provide service and eschew hedonism within the path of happiness. It makes me happy to see some of my patients. I provide them with a "service". At least that's what everyone says. Still, they certainly provide me with a service of at least as great a magnitude.