Blog #2

People handle serious illnesses in many different ways. In The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, he describe many ways in which people dealt with the disease called Ebola. A 10 year old Danish boy named Peter Cardinal, was infected with Marburg disease after visiting Kitum Cave. He started to get red eyes and his parents took him to the doctors. The doctors said he had malaria but his mother thought he was dying. His mother was sent into a frantic worried about her sons life so she made the doctors send Peter to Nairobi hospital.(pg 101) The mother dealt with the serious illness by demanding things and wanting answers. Nurse Mayinga had treated the Nun who died of Ebola while she was sick. Soon after the Nurse started to have symptoms of the disease. Instead of being quarantined, she went on with her daily life and went into town one day. She risked the chance of infecting thousands of people. Instead of handling her illness, she decided to run away from it. (pg 84). From my own experiences I have learned of how people deal with serious illnesses in different ways. In January of 2015, my grandfather was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was given a year to live. After this news, he segregated himself from everyone, even his family. He was angry over the diagnoses and didn't talk to anyone. He allowed no one to visit him because he wanted no one to see him deteriorating. He chose to be angry as a way of coping with his serious illness.