Dealing with colon cancer: one woman's emotional journey

Although death is inevitable, it continues to remain a taboo issue for society. A failure to discuss the unavoidable may represent a safeguard to avoid dealing with mortality and related fears. Many patients who are terminally ill spend their days feeling alone, misunderstood, and afraid. Kubler-Ross attempted to strip death of its negative connotations and to provide a venue for the terminally ill to have a voice. Using information from more than 200 clinical interviews, Kubler-Ross revealed a trend in emotions over time in most, but not all, of her patients, which enabled her to formulate a model of coping with death that included 5 interdependent emotional stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This model has become the most widely accepted and popularized model on death and dying, often cited as the Five Stages of Grief." However, given the lack of research concerning Kubler-Ross's model, completing work in this area seems warranted. The purpose of this case study was to examine one individual's emotional journey after being diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. More specifically, the goals were twofold: (1) to provide the participant with a voice and to allow her story to be told by examining the major external events (ie,surgery, chemotherapy) occurring since the diagnosis that affected her emotional and physical well-being and (2) to determine whether the participant's emotional journey paralleled Kubler-Ross's model, to what extent, and whether new emotions or stages occurred. The participant, a 50-year-old female, was diagnosed with stage 4 Duke Stage D colon cancer. Qualitative information was collected in face-to-face interviews, newspaper articles about the participant, and e-mail correspondence (as form letters to a group of friends and supporters) and subsequently analyzed for trends. The overall results revealed clear existence of the 5 stages of grief as outlined in the Kubler-Ross model. Analyses also revealed that the stages often overlapped or occurred simultaneously. Additionally, the participant regressed to earlier stages when subjected to negative external factors. Four other highly salient emotions were also prevalent throughout the participant's experience with colon cancer, namely joy, fear, hope, and numbness. The findings from this case study help to validate Kubler-Ross's stages. Further, the importance of the voice of the participant cannot be overemphasized. This case study clearly depicts the unique thoughts and emotions during one woman's struggle with colon cancer, sentiments that are often overlooked in quantitative analysis.