“When a loved one dies, grieving is unavoidable,” says Dr. Dori Seccareccia, psychosocial therapist and physician in the Odette Cancer Centre’s Patient and Family Support Program. “Grief is a normal part of life.”

But everyone experiences grief differently. There is no “right way” to grieve. And talking about it can be challenging, she says.

Grief isn’t something that can be “fixed”.

“There’s no one perfect thing to say or do that will make the grief go away,” Dr. Seccareccia says. “Grief is a process that can’t be rushed and takes a different amount of time for different people.”

After someone close to you dies, you may have good days and difficult days. And, they can be impossible to predict.

“As your deceased mother’s birthday approaches, you might think it’ll be a terrible day and the day turns out better than you expected,” Dr. Seccareccia says.

Then a few weeks later, you might smell her perfume in an elevator and be brought to pieces.

“That’s normal. Grief takes time. Our memories for our loved ones are powerful and can trigger emotions for a long time after a person dies.”

Take care of yourself.

As you grieve, it’s important that you are kind to yourself and take care of yourself.

“Different factors such as guilt, fatigue or feeling numb, can make this challenging at times,” Dr. Seccareccia says. “Try to eat regular meals, exercise and get enough sleep. Try to continue or reestablish some of your routines.”

Other suggestions include trying something new that you are interested in, like a dance class, or seeing a movie with a friend.

“This all may seem very hard at first, but with time, the intensity of grief decreases and life seem to settle,” she adds.

Get help.

The symptoms of grief and depression can look the same. Being sad or “feeling depressed” is common to both. Turn to an expert for help in differentiating the two and getting the best support (if you or your loved one has clinical depression it’s important to see a professional and for some, medications may be helpful).

You may want to talk to a professional grief counsellor, psychologist or psychotherapist.

There are also lots of good online resources. Check out MyGrief.ca, which is run by the Canadian Virtual Hospice and has online courses, resources and a community.

For friends: Listen. And just be there.

Listen to your friend and try to be supportive. Say less, listen more. And speak in a non-judgmental way.

You can ask: How are you doing? How can I help you? Is there anything I can do? Respect that your friend might also need time and have days they do not want to talk.

There are some things that are not helpful to say. Things like “Everything happens for a reason” or “It’ll be OK” or “At least your Dad isn’t suffering anymore” have been found to be unhelpful to people who are grieving.

It’s not unusual for people to think “I don’t know what to say”, and so they may even pull away and avoid their friend who is grieving.

“But it’s OK to just spend time together,” Dr. Seccareccia says. “You don’t need to come up with the perfect thing to say or feel that you have to make things better.”

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The Answer: A cold or flu can increase the effect of your warfarin and may warrant an adjustment in the dose. The best thing to do is to call the clinic and describe your symptoms. Clinic staff may tell you to come to hospital and have a blood tested sooner than scheduled. Depending on the severity of your illness, the staff may also suggest the warfarin be changed.

“Although anticoagulants are life-saving, they’re potentially dangerous drugs given for dangerous diseases,” said Dr. Bill Geerts, a thrombosis specialist. “Over the age of 70, about 10 per cent of people have atrial fibrillation and most of these patients should be taking an anticoagulant.”

Not every patient who could benefit from the drug receives it. In fact, it requires so much monitoring and effort, that some patients are not given the option. Others are put on aspirin, even though, as Dr. Geerts points out, it is much less effective at preventing stroke in atrial fibrillation, a disorder of the heart’s electrical system.

Anticoagulants include heparin, low molecular weight heparin, warfarin and new oral anticoagulants dabigatran and rivaroxaban. There are two groups of patients typically prescribed them: those with atrial fibrillation and patients with deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism – abnormal blood clots that develop in a leg vein or travel to the lung.

Anticoagulants should also be prescribed prophylactically to many surgical and medical patients in hospitals – but that isn’t always the case.

In fact, Dr. Geerts estimates more than 20,000 Canadians die each year after being struck down by these silent killers. [This rate is an extrapolation based on data from the United States].

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I was tucking my son into bed a few weeks ago when he started asking some heavy questions. Normally, I would take any conversation immediately preceding lights out as a stalling tactic, but I couldn’t leave him hanging when he asked if we were all going to die one day.

I took a moment and thought about how to answer him in an age-appropriate way. Pulling out the old “flower” metaphor (used no doubt by millions of parents before me), I explained that life is a cycle, and that yes, every beginning has to have an end. He stared at me wide-eyed, so I quickly added there was no reason to worry because he is young and that’s a long way off. A few seconds passed and then he asked if I was going to die soon, because I’m old. Bruised ego aside, I assured him with a prompt “no” and kiss on the forehead. That seemed to do it as he rolled over and grabbed his bear.

He felt better, but all I could think was I potentially just lied to my kid. What I should have said was “Honey, mommy is doing everything she can to stay healthy, but really, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Plus, some are predicting the world will end this December. Sleep tight!” Honesty is over-rated, plus the kid needed to sleep. What’s a parent to do?

Want to live for a long time? Go to the gym, quit smoking and eat healthy – all things that have been shown to extend the average lifespan.

When it comes to dealing with things that are essentially out of our hands, Dr. Kelsey Collimore, a clinical and research fellow in Sunnybrook’s Department of Psychiatry says to remember that our interpretation of events is key. What you choose to focus on gives that event or thought importance. So if you haven’t already, stop Google searching “death and Mayans”. I think it’s fair to say we’re all too busy to die, let alone sit around and worry about it.

While as inevitable as taxes, death is usually far less predictable. That’s another reason why I find all this Mayan doomsday talk such a waste of time. Not only is the idea bunk in my opinion, but it also takes the focus away from what we really should be concentrating on. Want to live for a long time? Go to the gym. Quit smoking. And stop eating foods your grandmother wouldn’t recognize. Aim to surpass the national average lifespan by relying on credible life extending evidence, and hey, if the world gets annihilated by a giant meteor in the meantime, at least you can say you tried (and looked great in your jeans in the process). And as I recently did, you can at least lie to your child with a decent hint of integrity in your eyes. Here’s to making death, and worry, the last things on our to-do lists.

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