When dealing with a health challenge, doing things perfectly will increase your chance of the best possible outcome. For anyone who likes to feel in control (who doesn’t?) and has perfectionist tendencies (ahem, that would include me), the desire to do things perfectly can create problems.
Read moreThe Healing Power of a Chair
Everyone needs a “go” bag to grab in case a medical problem ends up requiring hospitalization. Along with mundane items like a toothbrush, hairbrush, robe, and magazine, consider adding a folding chair.
Read moreManaging Mismatched Love Languages
Someone does something nice for a patient. The patient isn’t happy about it. Tensions rise. The problem may be mismatched love languages.
Read moreAn Ugly Side of Patienthood
My mom’s friend offered me a small tray of cookies. I took one look, and yelled, “No!” The next day, I felt ashamed that I’d bitten the hand of someone treating me with lovingkindness. The episode taught me that illness could make me mean, and I didn’t like that.
I forgave myself but didn’t forget it.
Read moreTruly Informed Consent
When patients are prepped and ready to start a procedure, a medical professional presents a consent form to sign. That setting does not serve the purpose of informed consent. An experience long ago led to a tip to ensure you make truly informed consent before proceeding.
Read moreDealing with Regrets
The crisis is over, and you are now fine. Except you keep replaying in your mind a particular aspect of how you handled the crisis, wishing you’d said or done it differently (e.g., recognized a worrisome symptom sooner).
Rationally, you know you need to let it go and move on. It’s in the past. But your mind is fixated on it. What can you do?
Read moreCelebrities' Cancer Stories
Stardom comes with power to influence others’ expectations and hopes, which marketers leverage to sell everything from reverse mortgages to wellness products. If you are a cancer patient, celebrities' cancer stories catch your attention in ways that hearing about neighbors' or friends-of-friends' diagnoses don't.
Read moreTime Toxicity
Dr. Arjun Gupta and colleagues coined a term: time toxicity. It’s defined as”time spent in pursuing, receiving and recovering from cancer treatments.” Considering time toxicity matters when deciding on treatment, especially if dealing with advanced, incurable disease and hoping to buy a bit more time.
Read moreFinally! A Better Name for Survivor's Guilt
For years, I’ve been searching for a better term than “survivor’s guilt” when referring to an uncomfortable feeling that may arise in patients after learning of someone who died of the same disease.
Read more10 Commandments While Caring for a Loved One
Commandments empower you when they inform and motivate you to be the best version of yourself. I wrote these as suggestions for people trying to do and be their best at caregiving for a loved one through cancer.
Read moreSuleika Jaouad on the Art Of Survival
Suleika Jaouad is talking about The Art of Survival I’ve followed her story since reading her 2012 New York Times column, Life Interrupted, documenting life as a young leukemia patient.
Read moreUnmerited Suffering
Patients who are suffering may find inspiration in an idea shared by Martin Luther King. The civil rights icon suffered much pain and loss, including arrests and jail time, the bombing of his house, and death threats.
Much of King’s suffering could have been avoided had he chosen less-risky paths. Unlike King, patients don’t choose to get the illness causing them to suffer. Yet, King’s message may speak to patients because of what they have in common:
Read moreIf You Want Something, Don't Want It
If achieving a specific outcome matters to you, here’s some advice: Don’t want that outcome. Instead, hope for it. That suggestion is not semantic wordplay. Hoping instead of wanting can mean the difference between achievement and disappointment. Here’s why:
Read moreStepping Away from a Good Cause
When patients involved in advocacy are ready to step away, doing so may be more complicated than just saying, No more.
Read moreOvercoming Obstacles to Hope
My post, Recognzing Obstacles to Hope, listed various factors that may impede the ability to feel hope. I brought up those issues to empower you. If hope feels elusive right now, understanding why opens opportunities to address potential obstacles to hope with your healthcare team and your support team.
Read moreNew Year's Blues
Talking about two R’s of the New Year’s holiday led me to helpful tips for managing unpleasant emotions.
Read moreRecognizing Obstacles to Hope
In Why Don’t I Feel Hope? I talk about hopelessness as a physical problem. If changes in the brain block the proper firing of brain cells needed to experience hope, willpower and/or spiritual faith may not be enough (just as a severed spinal cord makes it impossible to move the legs)—no matter how much patients want to feel hope.
Read more