Dr. Barbara Okun and Dr. Joseph Nowinski termed “new grief” as protracted anticipatory grief brought on by the life-prolonging advances in medical care. Here are 3 tips to address it.

In 2012, I badly broke my leg in India. Over the next eight years I saw seven specialists in four different hospitals, endured four surgeries, and had four nails, six pins, six staples, one aluminum rod, and one cadaver ligament implanted into my legs, and a meniscectomy. It wasn’t until 2020 that I was finally diagnosed with chronic osteomyelitis and began a protracted year-long quest to save my leg from amputation.

We’ve all experienced profound loss during Covid-19, and, of course, many of us more than others. Absent of national mourning, there are small things we can do to collectively grieve.