December 21st, 2010 by DavedeBronkart in Better Health Network, Opinion
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If you don’t truly understand how draining it can be to live with chronic illness, including chronic pain, go read The Spoon Theory right now. In five minutes it forever changed my own awareness of my wife’s arthritis and bone pain.
On Twitter I saw “spoonies” raving about this months ago, but I finally took time to read it: 2,100 words and worth every second. Also, on Twitter follow @bydls – “But you don’t look sick!” – and explore their smart website, where they’re wisely selling posters of the story for doctors’ waiting rooms, and everything else imaginable in modern outreach through social media.
These are smart people, and this is a powerful piece of writing.
*This blog post was originally published at e-Patients.net*
December 4th, 2010 by Elaine Schattner, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, True Stories
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To complain or “be good” is an apparent dilemma for some patients with serious illness.
Yesterday I received an email from a close friend with advanced breast cancer. She’s got a lot of symptoms: Her fatigue is so overwhelming she can’t do more than one activity each day. Yesterday, for example, she stayed home all day and did nothing because she was supposed to watch a hockey game in the evening with her teenage son and other family members. Her voice is weak, so much it’s hard to talk on the phone. She has difficulty writing, in the manual sense — meaning she can’t quite use her right arm and hand properly.
“It’s something I would never mention to the doctor because it is very subtle,” she wrote. “But it has not improved and if anything has worsened over time.”
There are more than a few possible medical explanations for why a person who’s receiving breast cancer therapy might not be able to use her right arm. But that’s not the point of today’s lesson. What’s noteworthy here is that the patient — an educated, thoughtful woman who’s in what should be the middle of her life and is trying as best she can to survive — doesn’t think these symptoms are worth mentioning. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medical Lessons*
July 28th, 2010 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
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I went to a patient’s funeral this past weekend. I generally don’t do that for people whose relationship I’ve built in the exam room. It’s a complex set of emotions, but invariably some family member will start telling others what a nice doctor I am and how much the person had liked me as a doctor. It’s awkward getting a eulogy (literally good words) spoken about me at someone else’s funeral. This patient I had known prior to them becoming my patient, and his wife had been very nice to us when we first moved here from up north.
But that’s not why I am writing this. As I was sitting in the service, the thought occurred to me that a patient’s funeral would be considered by many to be a failure for a doctor. Certainly there are times when that is the case — when the doctor could have intervened and didn’t, or intervened incorrectly, causing the person to die earlier than they could have. Every doctor has some moments where regrets over missed or incorrect diagnosis take their toll. We are imperfect humans, we have bad days, and we don’t always give our patients our best. We have limits. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
February 14th, 2010 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, True Stories
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I have just a couple of thoughts today that I offer to the reader not for sympathy but, rather, for scientific observation and reflection.
I’ve been dealing with a case of bronchitis that became pneumonia. I tried to teach through it, do grant reviews, finish a book chapter, etc. but was finally ordered by my pulmonologist to recuperative bedrest at home for approximately four weeks.
When told I’d be confined to bed for a month, I thought that it would be great – that I’d get two papers and a grant renewal done and still have plenty of time for blog posts I’ve been wanting to get to, finish writing a couple of songs to take to the studio, get all the tax documents together, maybe learn a little CSS and webpage design and get around to a hosted personal website for the domain I’ve had for a year, etc. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
