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New normal in dementia care Memory Units in the age of Covid-19. Social distancing? Right. Live in the moment. Honor the caregivers. Help the helpers.
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The Ch’i, Covid-19, Chinese medicine, lungs & spleen. Warm water, less sugar, exercise, sleep well. Find 1 source of less depressing news. Connect. Invincible.
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Darlene Harrier talks about physical therapy for those with neurodegenerative disorders like MS and Parkinson’s: intermittent, life-long care.
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Cynthia Meyer created the Second Wind Movement for retirees to live their best life. She teaches mini-goals and micro-stepping towards the 5 Rings of Retirement, Growth, Health, Finance, Community, and Giving Back. Listen in or read on.
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Sometimes I wish I had fallen in love with the flute. It would be easier than carrying the 40-pound sax up and downstairs. But it motivates me to keep doing my squats and increasing upper body strength as my lower body function diminishes. So, engaging with sax is perfect for me. Using different parts of my brain, learning every day, keeping me humble, and spiritually strong. Are you still playing the baritone sax? is a spot-on personal health outcome for me. So merry holidays everyone. I hope you have a musical season
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Welcome to the Health Hats podcast series about young adults transitioning from pediatric to adult medical care. In this series, I interview young adults with complex medical conditions, their parent or guardians, point-of-care clinicians caring for these young adults, and whoever else I find of interest in this fascinating, frustrating, heart-breaking, and inspiring world.
This second podcast of the series is with Sara Lorraine Snyder, a fine, eloquent, young woman who has lived her entire life with chronic medical issues. She’s learning to drive her own healthcare and manage the transition to adult medical care.
“If you were playing with the team for football or whatever and then they come you come in the next practice and half of your team is completely new people that you don’t even know and then you don’t know how to effectively work with that team so that in the end of the day you can win or like achieve, whatever you need to.” Sara Lorraine Snyder
Health Hats, The Blog is changing. I’m the same 2-legged white man of privilege, living in a food oasis, who can afford many hats, as I was a couple of months ago. But my advocacy, ministry, channel are changing. I fell into this podcasting fellowship and here I am a podcaster, too. I’m having a blast. Loving the sound medium. The blog has been a mouthpiece for me. I tested the limits of showing how full of myself I can be. And it allowed me to think out loud.
You are my loyal audience. I write and produce for you. I start with a germ that’s mine. A question, an idea, an initiative I want to think through. Then I go to it with you in mind. I ask myself, why should you care about whatever? It’s important to me, why do I think it should be important to you? As I write or produce, the germ sprouts, grows into something unexpected, almost all the time. I’m amazed.
The thing about blogging is that’s almost always one-way. I average 1.3 comments per blog post over 6+ years. I’m getting a bit tired of myself. There’s so much about which I know enough to be dangerous. Podcasting can be a two-way street. Me learning about what interests me. I also recognize that some people like to read, others like to listen, and still others like to watch. So, I’m trying to develop all three media: blog, podcast, YouTube videos.
I’m part of a podcasting fellowship: eight weeks of daily coursework with 300 other budding podcasters from all over the world. We created a supportive community during the course. Now that it’s over, over 100 of us are still engaging, sharing, cheerleading, learning together. A model virtual community (I smell another blog post). I’m a budding sound engineer, producer, and interviewer. I added transcripts for readers and deaf folk. Be still my beating heart. Already, I’ve had an ode to my boy, Mike Funk, met men in caregiving, channeled clowns in the doctors office, explored health equity. I’m working on a series about young adults transitioning from pediatric to adult medicine from the young adult and parent perspective, and conceiving a series about pain management.
But I never asked you if this change to blogging plus podcasting was OK with you, what you think of it, or for your constructive criticism. This is me asking you now.
I was going to send you a survey, but I’d rather just hear from you. I’m eager for observations, atta boys, I’m outta heres, creative ideas, topic ideas, interviewees?
Talk to me, please. Email me at danny@health-hats.com!
And thank you for your loyalty. Weekly for six years, OMG! We’ve been together a long time in blog years. Onward!
Yes, you concerned readers, I’m still playing my baritone saxophone. I’m taking lessons every two weeks via Skype. No travel time! I’ve upped my playing to 4-6 hours a week. More structured, too: scales, chords, simple rhythms. I still lose my place improvising, a lot. But I’m less in my head, thank you very much, what a relief. I’m paying more attention to my sound. I love the sound of the bottom (the bari sax is very low). I’ve changed my mouthpiece and reeds.
Devoting time to self-care – pretty fascinating in its own right. A stock question when I talk with people: what do you do for fun? Quite fascinating, try it. Knitting, dancing, jogging, singing, grandkids, soccer, hiking, needlepoint, painting, riding horses, writing, yoga, traveling. My ability to predict what a person does for fun is marginally better than my Lotto predictions. Some say I don’t have time for fun. Or, I’m ready to retire, don’t know what I’ll do. This makes me sad. Very sad. Read More
I’m ready to quit playing my horn. I can’t seem to bring what I’ve learned while playing at home (practicing) to rehearsals. I’m lost. I have fat fingers. I can’t find a 2 or 4 measure rhythmic pattern that works. I lose my place. I can’t seem to learn the language. I definitely I don’t have the muscle memory yet. It’s disheartening. I’m used to being good at what I do. I was a great bedside nurse. I was a really good boss. I’m a prolific and engaging writer. I’m sought after for my patient/caregiver activism. Music, not so much. I’m persistent, not talented. I’m humbled, playing music. Part of the secret sauce to managing my Multiple Sclerosis, is that I keep manageable stress to a minimum. Being a boss and employee was too stressful, so I stopped. I don’t have secrets. My close relationships are fresh and up-to-date. I adapt well to my slow reduction in function. Playing is stressing me out. Wait, I haven’t had a sax lesson in months. My teacher is very good. Positive and creative with my fluctuating abilities. Tells me to play less. I didn’t stay at the top of my game in my 40+ year career without coaching and mentoring. It wasn’t possible. I play for a reason. It’s one of two outcomes I track with my doctors (falling and playing the saxophone).
I’m not quitting. Thanks for listening.
I’ve told my teams over the years, if we don’t fail several times a week we’re not pushing the envelope and not doing our jobs. We weren’t tightrope walkers, pushing IV meds, or manufacturing artificial joints. We were innovators, learners, and leaders. Failure as a virtue is a hard sell – to almost anyone. My teams, my colleagues in leadership, editorial review boards always start by thinking I’m crazy. Sometimes they eventually get it, sometimes not. Leadership usually wants to get A’s. In one health system I worked for, I reported that we successfully completed medication reconciliation in 40% of admissions. OMG, that’s awful! They said. No, I said, that’s great! We’re failing. Let’s succeed. In 18 months we completed medication reconciliation 70% of the time. It’s a lot harder to go from 70% to 80% than 40% to 70%. In research, we don’t publish when the study doesn’t prove the hypothesis. Yet, not proving is as important, if not more important, than proving. I was on an Editorial Review Board once that decided to solicit articles where the hypothesis wasn’t proven and something was learned. Over a 10-year span, we solicited exactly 0 such articles. Zero!
A definition of failure to some is the opposite of success. Not necessarily. Especially when it comes to learning and getting healthier. We don’t tell kids they fail when they fall learning to walk. They keep trying. Same with learning to talk. As an adult, I find failure a motivator to try again. As a thinker and a catalyst for change, I’m delighted when I succeed with 30% of what I try. It’s been the rare boss that’s accepted that. They’ve been the best bosses and we’ve done the best work together in my career.
For health, embrace failure. I did eye exercises twice a day for 8 months before my brain rewired and my crippling double vision cleared 80%. That’s 360 failures and one success! It’s taken years of trial and error to land on a balance, stretching, and strengthening routine that works for me. I stumble a lot, fall infrequently, and sustain only minor injuries when I do. I get frustrated when I see failure and stuck in the muck. Fail and try something else, that’s the ticket.
Failure flavors humility and empathy. My best stories are of failure – my failures. People laugh with me. We can all relate to failure. It’s the warp of our lives. Hearing about a failure, we naturally ask, and then? What happened next? What did you learn? What did you try? What eventually worked?
So, failure, persistence, and humor are inseparable cronies. Keep trying and chuckle at the absurdity. That‘s life, health, music – anything worth doing well. Persist and laugh. Eventually, who knows?
Photo by Nik MacMillan on Unsplash
