I didn't have a health problem myself, but my mother was deep in dementia and close to dying, and I found that my worst days were when I most needed to write. Something about getting my worst fears and anguish out onto the page, made it possible to give it up, so that I didn't hold it inside. I wrote some really horrible things (or they seemed so at the time), but it was the way I worked through things. Especially the things that I didn't want to tell friends and family.