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Care Partner

Crafting Solutions to Conflict

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Podcasts

As CEO of our health we manage, we lead, we decide, we learn. In the role of CEO, or as team members for others, we engage in many difficult conversations. These difficult conversations often include sharing information, tracking plans, activities, and symptoms, making decisions, managing circumstances, and adjusting to personalities. We don’t understand. We’re overwhelmed. We can’t decide. Emotions get the best of us. We have trouble listening or caring. The opportunity for conflict between any of our health team seems endless. Learn positive ways to approach conflict with Jane Beddall. Read More

CEO of My Health

By Advocate, Clinician, ePatient, Leader, Podcasts

I want to be a better CEO of my health and health team. Better at learning, managing, leading, and deciding. Most of us are only fair at any of it. Few are good at all of it. And our lives depend on them all. Let’s explore this further together in future podcasts. I encourage you to share your questions and thoughts with me.

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Fibromyalgia. Managing Pain. Doing the Work.

By Advocate, ePatient, Podcasts

When I examine the puzzle of pain management and opioid use, I often see Melissa Reynold’s words in my mind’s eye. She lives with, struggles with pain. She’s so sensible about pain. Melissa writes about Fibromyalgia, chronic pain, and pregnancy, separately and together. I read her faithfully and comment more than I do with most. She has inspired me from the start. Please allow me to share Melissa’s wisdom with you here.

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Trust

By Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Family man

I trust my primary care doc.  I trust my neurologist. I trust my instincts. I trust my gut. I do. I trust my wife. She trusts me.  That certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t question almost everything each other says. Trust is not blind faith. Trust is NOT no second opinions. Trust is for when I’m in a crisis and I can’t think clearly, I will listen to my immediate family and my two lead docs (in that order) and I’m likely to do what they recommend… unless I’m unsure. Trust is for when I need to make a decision but can’t or don’t want to. And these are all people’s opinions about what I should do with my life. I know I should lose weight. People I trust say I should lose weight.  It takes a certain alignment of the stars for me to lose weight. I lost 30 pounds eight years ago when the stars were in alignment. They were in alignment again three weeks ago. I’ve started to lose the same 30 pounds again.

I’ve questioned my primary care doc about taking cholesterol-lowering meds.  She wants me to take them. I’m not so sure. The evidence appears pretty clear. I’ve been taking them for nine years because I trust her. Now with Medicare, they’re going to cost me more. It has me thinking again.  I still trust her.  I’ve stopped taking them.

I trusted my doctors for twenty-five years as they worked me up, over and over, for cardiac issues.  Now I know I have multiple sclerosis, not heart disease. I’m a trusting fellow until I’m not.

A friend of mine had breast cancer. She asked her doctors, “Should I take chemo?” They all said yes. She trusted that they wanted the best for her, but wondered where their trust in that advice came from? Was their research current, reliable, and apply to her as an individual? She did the chemo.

Webster says, Trust = you can rely on the integrity, strength, or ability of a person or thing. Trust is respect + communication + context. Making choices about your health in a bed of trust is hard enough. Making choices in the swamp of distrust can be crazy making.

As a person, I try to build trust – in relationships. It starts with being trustworthy. I feel better in that bed of trust. Still, trust in myself, ourselves, is key. Ultimately, it’s our lives.  We face the consequences of our decisions. I’m greatly relieved that I trust I can adjust and make a different choice if the one I made didn’t work out. Trust.

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Clown and young lady smiling

Reading the Room and Yourself

By Advocate, Caregiver

Sometimes I feel like I’m part of someone else’s play. Just dropped in. I don’t know my lines, I don’t know the other characters. I think I’m in a drama, yet it feels like a farce. The stage is ever changing. Have you seen those round, rotating stages where the props keep changing? I think I’m playing myself, but I’m not quite sure. On top of it, I feel like crap, I’m exhausted, I’m cranky. I exit, stage right, left, whichever. What just happened? What do I do now? Oh yes, time to live life again.

When I worked at Boston Children’s Hospital, I took a class from the Big Apple Circus clowns. These are people who go from room to room visiting kids and their parents or go to scary procedures with them and help them feel better for a couple of minutes. The class was on reading the room. Sizing up the characters, the dynamic, the vibe in the room and then selecting a path forward. The kid is hurt, angry, and withdrawn. There’s tension between the hovering adults. What can you do? In seconds they insert themselves, do something odd or funny, draw out the child, and break the tension. Read More

Imagine

By Clinician, ePatient

Clinician

Imagine sitting down with your patient and care partner to find them prepared to choose a treatment that works for them.

Imagine that they know their life priorities and their life challenges and can and will communicate them to you.

Imagine that you have a key to the Tower of Babel and can communicate with anyone.

Imagine that you have the latest research at your fingertips so you can have informed conversations with your patient.

Imagine that they understand that recommended treatments might work. It’s an experiment based on pretty good research, your clinical experience and training, and your sensitivity to them.

Imagine that you all accept the uncertainty of evidence and of life.

Imagine that they trust you.

Imagine that you have all the time you need together with no distractions for you or them.

Imagine that your practice runs so efficiently and effectively that most of your face time with patients is spent in relationship building, exam, and problem-solving.

Imagine that by spending a few minutes together, you can to input assessment and exam and their data seamlessly into their electronic medical record (EHR).

Imagine that they can and do submit corrections to the data in their records and that those corrections can be reviewed and entered quickly.

Imagine that it’s easy to track in the EHR how well the actions taken to treat actually worked over time using your entries and their entries.

Imagine that the recommendations chosen automatically populate a personal care plan for your patient along with all the other choices you made together about treatment and self-care.

Imagine that they will follow the plan, track progress, and let you know when they don’t and why.

Imagine that the up-to-date treatment plan and tracker is shareable in real time with anyone the patient chooses using any EHR or health app.

Patient and Care Partner

Imagine that you have all the information you need to make decisions about your medical treatment including the cost of those choices.

Imagine that the information can be shared with your family, friends, and advisors so you are prepared to advocate for yourself and make decisions with your doctor.

Imagine that you can talk about your life’s goals and challenges and that your doctor can hear you.

Imagine that all health professionals realize that they are guests in your life.

Imagine that you have time to talk and share with your doctor without distractions.

Imagine that your doctor trusts you to be the expert about you.

Imagine that your doctor helps you understand research and how it applies to you.

Imagine that you have a care partner who goes to doctor visits with you, listens and advocates for you.

Imagine that your health and wellness choices and plans can be found in your EHR.

Imagine that you can correct and update your health data and track your progress in your EHR.

Imagine you have one up-to-date EHR for all settings and providers and you control who has access to it.

Imagine that you have access to medical advice and can get questions answered when you need it, in a manner that you can digest.

Imagine that if you try something and it doesn’t work, you can adjust quickly with your health team to try something else.

 

Imagine

Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash

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A Fish Out of Water

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Leader

When I went to an inner city Nursing School in 1975, I was a 19-year old hippie white boy from the suburbs in a class of 150 mostly mid-aged African American women (one other guy).  I felt like a fish out of water. When you’re admitted to the hospital you’re wearing a johnnie, pushing a button for help, and feeling like crap you’re surrounded by streams of people in uniforms who know each other and work together every day. A fish out of water. As a patient stakeholder/expert on a panel, I’m surrounded by scientists, physicians, administrators.  A fish out of water.

Interesting idiom, fish out of water. I picture a fish flapping, breathless, on the deck of a boat or in a pail, ready to die. But really that’s way too drastic. It’s more, oh crap, what am I doing here? I don’t belong. I feel so small. I’m an extrovert (or ENFP for you Myers Briggs folk), so I wriggle out of that fish out of water feeling pretty quickly. Ever since my hippie drug days, I learned to bring safety with me whenever I did anything risky. My intro to Participatory Medicine was Take this Book to the Hospital with You by Charles Inlander and Ed Weiner. Create your own pond in the middle of dry dock in the fish out of water idiom. In Nursing School I set up a study group and held them at my classmates’ homes.  I knew how to study and they knew how to cook. As a direct care nurse, I encouraged people to have a family member with them at all times. I build relationships with people on panels and soon I have a pond.

It’s harder when you’re not an extrovert.  It takes pre-thought, planning, and encouragement from others. When I watch introverts manage successfully they know who they are, have confidence, and are clear that it’s their needs that should be met. And they take someone to the hospital with them.

What do you do when you’re a fish out of water?

Post Image from Public Domain Pictures

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Eureka! Triggers and Signals

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient

When Liz found herself unwilling to floss, she knew that major depression was soon to follow. She’s going to need help.  She tells someone who knows how to help her before she loses the will to take any action. When I start to get dizzy, I know my MS symptoms will soon get worse.  Drinking water almost always helps. Water! Sometimes I feel like I’m going to cry. No real reason. Normal life. It’s a signal that I’m overtired. Nap or meditation is next.  It always works. If John feels stressed and bloated, a flare-up of his Crohn’s is soon to follow. He avoids certain food, takes acetaminophen, and stays near a bathroom. When Tiffany gets a rash she needs to see her doctor within a couple of days. If she has joint pain as well, it can’t wait a couple of days.  Tiffany has lupus.

Liz, John, Tiffany, and I recognize signals that trouble is coming and action is needed. We learned the signals because we are wired to take the step back and watch ourselves from a distance. We are mindful and curious about patterns. It takes time until the Eureka/recognition minute hits. None of our doctors ever asked us if we knew our signals or asked us about our patterns.  We are all four fortunate to have a friend or care partner who listens to our ramblings.  It’s during these ramblings, complaining, wondering, pattern-seeking, and problem-solving that we learned first one signal, then more. Two of us have clinicians that helped us figure out what to do once we told them about our signals. The other two tried stuff they learned from our advocacy associations and social media networks. We are so relieved to be building this tool chest of actions to take when we recognize signals. We are eager to discover more patterns and signals. It’s like turning over a rock and finding a twinkling gem.

Once we recognize a pattern, a signal, and an action that works, we can start to look for triggers. Triggers are stressors we know will be likely to cause a signal. Managing triggers is prevention. Liz, John, Tiffany, and I have a common set of triggers: emotional stress, inactivity, smoke inhalation, insufficient rest. We also have unique triggers.  They are many and varied.

Traditional doctor visits seldom contain routine time to learn about and discover signals, triggers, responses, and prevention. The electronic medical records seldom keep track of this learning, action, and response. It makes sense (silly, but makes sense). It’s time-consuming and it’s not in the many medical professionals’ training and workflow.  It’s up to us and our personal health team. I find that people who blog about their illness and their life challenges caused or made worse by their illness, almost always write about signals, triggers, and actions. You can find many on The Chronic Illness Bloggers here on Facebook. Liz, John, Tiffany, and I also keep track as we learn about what worked – Spreadsheets, journals, or blogging.

Not everyone has a pattern-seeking brain. Even if they do have a pattern-seeking brain, they may feel so bad that there’s little space to use it.  So it’s up to our care partner, our friends, our social network, to help us.  It’s liberating. It’s diagnosis agnostic (true for any chronic illness). It’s so totally worth the effort. What have you learned?

Dandelion Trigger Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

Pattern Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash

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Fibro Mama – Book Review

By Caregiver, ePatient, Family man

Fibro Mama: Pregnancy and Fibromyalgia by Melissa Reynolds

Odd, isn’t it? A book review about pregnancy and pain by a guy! Well, I’m a dad, an Opa (grandpa), registered nurse, and a patient activist.  I have Multiple Sclerosis and I know chronic illness and pain management. We had home births with a midwife at one and no midwife at another. Enough about me. I’m reviewing the book because Melissa asked me to.  Thanks, Melissa.

Look, no one knows someone else’s experience, it belongs to them. As Melissa says in her introduction, “I can give you tips about what worked for me. … However, in the end, it’s you putting one foot in front of the other.  That’s how we live, right?”

Lived experience and a dollar fifty will buy you a Pepsi. Lived experience + self-awareness  + systems thinking + good storytelling is golden. Add brevity and it’s priceless. Melissa’s book is priceless. Took me half an hour to read it through once. I marked it up and spent a couple of hours reading it again. Here are the best parts (for me, a guy, who will never be pregnant):

  1. 16 natural pain relief suggestions – I use many of these myself for muscle tension and cramping. Great list. I never tried oils. I may.
  2. The sections about the three trimesters, immediately post-delivery, and the first 6 weeks all include sleep, exercise, meditation, and a pain management plan.  They’re basic and vital. She lays it out for you.
  3. I can’t evaluate the extensive section on nursing except to say that it’s comprehensive and empowering. I always love the response, “there is no wrong choice”.
  4. Using help is big, really big. Melissa has a great care partner. She says to insist that s/he/they be allowed to be with you 24/7 whenever you’re a guest in an institution. Absolutely. Pregnant or not pregnant, fibromyalgia or no fibromyalgia, this is true.
  5. Last, but so not least – Tips to Cope with a Fussy Baby When You’re Sore. She’s buying minutes for you. Dad’s too.

Thanks for the opportunity to review this fine book. You can get it here.

 

See also:

How Many Words for Pain?

Managing Pain

A Caregiver is [Not] a Caregiver, is [Not] a Caregiver

Health Partners

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