When Life Hands You a Diagnosis— How to Receive, Accept, and Keep Living (and Laughing)
When Life Hands You a Diagnosis
How do you keep living when you receive a difficult diagnosis? Suppose for a moment that your body was a house, and one day, you found a crack in the foundation. It doesn’t mean the whole house is falling. But it does mean you can’t pretend it isn’t there.
That’s a bit of how a diagnosis feels.
One day, you’re walking through your ordinary life—watering the plants, losing the reading glasses, folding the towels that have already been folded twice—and then suddenly, a word drops into your world like a stone in a still pond.
Heart failure. Cancer. Parkinson’s. Autoimmune. Even the so-called “manageable” ones, like high blood pressure or diabetes, carry weight when they arrive with your name on them.
It’s not a club anyone asks to join. But somehow, here you are.
The Moment It Lands
For many of us, the diagnosis doesn’t come all at once. It drips in—bloodwork, scans, that vague look on the doctor’s face. Or maybe it does arrive in a rush, announced in a sterile exam room where the paper crinkles too loudly beneath you and the clock ticks just a little too fast.
It lands, and time folds in on itself. You might hear nothing after the word is spoken. Or everything. Your life story suddenly develops a before and after.
I’ve learned that it’s perfectly reasonable to respond with denial, curiosity, fear, or a well-earned tantrum. All valid.
Some of us go straight to Google. (Pro tip: don’t.)
Some of us go numb.
Some of us go shopping, because new shoes won’t cure a thing but by golly, they can still make you feel fabulous for a few hours.
The Invitation of Acceptance
Let me say this clearly: acceptance is not approval. It doesn’t mean you like what’s happening. It doesn’t mean you’re okay with it, or that you’re not allowed to rage and cry and wish it all away.
When I was diagnosed with MS (decades ago), I developed a reputation for being the worst patient in the hospital.
I am not sure which created more trauma – the denial from those who loved me that there was anything wrong, or my ‘acting out’ my fear and anger towards those who were only trying to help.
Acceptance, in this sense, is more like opening a door you’ve been pressing your weight against.
You don’t walk through because you’re happy to see what’s on the other side—you walk through because the resistance is exhausting, and the door is going to open anyway.
What if we could think of acceptance not as surrender, but as spaciousness? A little breathing room. A way to move forward without dragging all that “this shouldn’t be happening” behind us like a reluctant suitcase on a broken wheel.
That doesn’t mean you stop feeling the hard feelings. You just stop pretending they aren’t real.
Living While Diagnosed (Which Is Still Living)
Here’s the quiet truth: once the dust settles, life goes on. Maybe it’s slower. I had to trade my hiking boots for a walker…several times. I became intimately acquainted with medication organizers, appointment calendars, and my favorite lab tech.
But I was still me.
And that matters. I learned that I still like what I like. I still get irritated by the same people. I still love my family, my books, and all the other things.
The point is, you don’t stop living. You start living with.
There came a day when I realized MS didn’t have me! I have it. I view it as a life-long companion.
Living with a diagnosis means learning how to pace yourself without apology. How to say “no thank you” when your body whispers it long before your voice catches up. It means finding new rhythms, new joys, and sometimes—yes—new griefs.
But even the grief becomes sacred once you stop trying to rush past it.
On Receiving Help (and Kicking the Guilt Out of the Room)
This one’s for my strong, capable readers—the ones who’ve nursed others, raised families, held jobs, held hands, held everything together.
Being helped is awkward at first. Letting someone fold your laundry, drive you to the doctor, or sit quietly beside you without offering solutions is not weakness.
It’s communion.
It’s also a gift you give them. One of my biggest wake-up calls happened years ago after a lengthy hospitalization.
I lived in a small farming community and a group of my neighbors showed up the day I got home from the hospital to harvest my garden, make several soups on my big old woodstove, split a pile of wood to keep it going, and cleaned my house.
I lay in my bed, preparing to dissolve into self-pity, when my friend, Heather, said, “Don’t take away our opportunity to give!” I learned in that moment that what I had to give was the act of receiving with gratitude.
Helping another person connects us in a way nothing else does.
If you’ve ever baked a casserole for someone going through it, you know what I mean. We’re not built to be self-sufficient islands.
We’re built for reciprocity. And sometimes your strength is letting others be strong for you.
You can receive with grace. You can even make a list of the things that are hardest to ask for, just to practice. Try it. I dare you.
The Things That Surprise You
Every diagnosis carries its own version of surprise. Sometimes it’s the friends who show up (or don’t).
Sometimes it’s the humor that sneaks in during the darkest days.
Sometimes it’s the unexpected calm that settles in after a long storm of uncertainty.
There are even—if you can believe it—gifts:
- A slower pace that lets you notice things you used to rush past.
- A clarity about what matters and what doesn’t.
- A deeper connection with your own spirit, or with the divine, however you name it.
I once heard someone say that illness is a masterclass in presence. You don’t get to zone out. You don’t get to postpone life until later. You learn to show up in the moment you’re in, exactly as you are.
Even if that moment includes a blood pressure cuff and waiting room chairs that feel like they’re designed to test your patience and your hip joints.
You’re Still Here
Let me say this as someone who’s lived through a few hard chapters myself: a diagnosis doesn’t get to claim your whole story.
Yes, it’s part of it. But it isn’t the end. It’s a chapter—a complicated one, maybe even a climactic one—but not the final word.
I’m still the person who laughs too loud at the wrong moment. I still make soup from scratch when I can, and I still hold my breath watching a sleeping baby.
I may move slower now, but the core of me—the wonder, the wisdom, the humor—that hasn’t gone anywhere.
And if that’s true for me, I believe it’s true for you.
So rest when you need to. Cry when you must. Laugh, if you can—especially in the middle of the hard stuff.
And don’t forget to watch the sunrise once in a while. It shows up, even after the longest night.
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