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Feb 11 2018
Love1

People with Chronic Illness Get Sick Too

By Clinician, ePatient

When I watch the camera scan a crowd (sports event, political rally) or I’m on the T (subway) I pick someone out and wonder,  What’s their backstories? Where do they live? Do they like being where they are right now? What ailments do they suffer from? Are they chronically ill? I’m either curious or nosey, maybe both.

A common theme in chronic illness social media is the frequent invisibility of chronic illness. You don’t look sick! When I see someone with a visible disability, I wonder if they have a cold, a stomach ache, or recently stubbed their toe?  People with chronic illnesses get sick, too. As my Primary Care doc says, your specialists help you manage your multiple sclerosis, I help you manage the rest of you. You’re still a 65-year old white man with high cholesterol, a prostate, a heartburn. You can get sick just like anyone else. Read More

Apr 02 2017
Love0

Service Agreements for Me and My Health Team

By Advocate, Caregiver, Consumer, ePatient

I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago for the Society of Participatory Medicine about Service Agreements Among Friends and Colleagues. My point was that service agreements set boundaries, which can be especially important for someone who’s managing a chronic condition. I shared my post with my colleagues at Involution Studios while we discussed the future of Precision Medicine.  What if we had service agreements with members of our health team? Professionals and non-professionals. And ourselves. Could we think of care plans as service agreements? Person-centered care planning focuses on the goals of the person on the health journey. Who’s going to do what to get there? When? How will these goals and activities be tracked and shared across time and settings? The service agreement is the who’s doing what to get there and when are they going to do it? If my goal is to progress as slowly as possible with my Multiple Sclerosis, then my part of the service agreement is that I will: Read More

Mar 05 2017
Love0

Community Rocks

By Advocate, Caregiver, Consumer, ePatient, Family man, Leader

I’m preparing to attend a California Compassionate Care Coalition palliative care conference #cccc17 in a week. I’m reminded of the power of community in advancing good health practices. I have two stories. The first is about the ongoing public health collaboration since 1993 in LaCrosse, WI to meet and sustain very high rates of advanced care planning and following documented preferences through end of life.  A group of people organized a region-wide initiative to elicit, understand, document, and honor a patient’s preferences about future medical care. As a result end of life preferences are a regular part of community conversation, documents became easier to understand and use, some electronic medical records facilitated access to choices, and following the choices became standard practice. In 2010 90% has a plan, 99% were available in the medical record, and 99.5% of the time treatment was consistent with preferences. (See the Journal of American Geriatrics Society).  Amazing! Read More

Feb 06 2017
Love0

Personal Health Goals

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, Consumer, ePatient, Family man, Uncategorized

 

As a person with MS, I’ve written that my personal health goals are to progress as slowly as possible and do nothing that will mess with my pathological optimism. People I talk with about personal health goals say it’s not easy to come up with personal goals.  What do I mean? OK, people who are well want to stay well.  Those who are acutely ill (cold, broken leg, stomach ache, etc.) want to get over it. Those who have chronic conditions want to manage as best as possible. Here’s a stab at a list of personal health goals. Read More

Jan 29 2017
Love0

Thoughts on FATIgue

By Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Family man

Exploit the relative dry spots in the wet blanket of fatigue.

Sadness and fatigue are kissing cousins.

So are chronic illness and fatigue.

Close your eyes, give in to fatigue.

When fatigued, turn off the news.

Passion finds and expands the cracks in fatigue.

Bone-tired fatigue? Take 2 deep breaths. Move something, anything.

Belly laughs exhaust fatigue.

Trump fatigue. #IamAMuslim.

A lethal stew: worry, annoyance, bitterness, and fatigue.

Fatigued? Love yourself. Whatever you do today is enough.

Fatigue loves hugs.

Jan 02 2017
Love0

Three Words for the Year

By Caregiver, ePatient, Family man, Leader, Musician

CareGiving.com is sponsoring Note to Ourselves For 2016 and Three Words for 2017. 

My Note to Myself: Continue to do what I’m doing. Appreciate the small stuff (fresh running water, regular garbage pickup). Appreciate living within our means. Appreciate the warm rocks of my honey and my family. Appreciate my empathetic and skilled health team. Stick to my health and safety routine every day. Mentor bright young minds. Have fun when collaborating to do good work.

Three words: Balance. Caregivers. Onward.

Balance – Family, exercise, music, work. In that order

Caregivers – I do the work I do for caregivers – Honor the caregivers, help the helpers. We couldn’t exist without them.

Onward – Moving stuff an inch that has 10 miles to go, requires one foot in front of the other.

Happy New Year!!! Here we go – weeeee

Dec 29 2016
Love0

Re-calibrating – Finding Balance

By Caregiver, ePatient, Family man

So, I have new MS lesions. I’m weaker, less stamina. A 3-days of IV SoluMedrol (steroids) infusion knocked me out. I’m recovering. What will my new normal be? Once again, I’m grateful for my health team. It reconfirms for me that executing a continuing plan of care for self, health team self-care, and building a responsive, loving, skilled health team are critical priorities for best health.

I’m out of balance. Balance implies constant motion – seesaw-like. It’s almost never a steady state. Balance occurs occasionally naturally while going up and down. A balance needs space and time to recalibrate. To think, to reflect, to adjust, to meditate, to vacation, to take a deep breath. Sometimes balance is an active process – change something, add weight, take off weight. More time at work, more time with family, more music, more exercise, more greens. Sometimes it’s laying back, letting life play out, resting, and return to balance as part of the normal see-saw. I’m lucky that I have a low tolerance for being out of balance.  I feel it acutely. I find it easier to be active attaining balance than to give myself some grace and let the balance return more organically. It feels better to be creating space and appreciating space.  More optimistic, better spirit.  Let’s see what happens. Honor caregivers. Help the helpers. Happy New Years, dear readers.

Dec 18 2016
Love1

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

By Advocate, Caregiver, ePatient, Family man, Leader, Musician, Researcher

Decisions, decisions, decisions. We face endless numbers of decisions during our health journeys. From the mundane, should I fast to lose weight? To the tedious, what statin should I take? To the heartbreak, should we do everything possible? Yesterday, after playing music, someone told us that he fasted to lose 20 pounds. How many weight loss discussions have we had in an endless number of settings. I can remember one time discussing it with my Primary Care doctor – no decision, no choice of action – just an observation that my weight had been steadily increasing over the years. My cholesterol is high, and my Dad died young of a heart attack (not from high cholesterol). I’ve taken six different statins. My Primary Care doc thinks the evidence is strong for me to take statins. We regularly change brand based on effects on my liver enzymes, cost, and insurance coverage.  A friend’s elder mother had major heart surgery. The cardiac surgeon reported success, she’s doing great – the blockage was successfully removed. She’s still in a coma, intubated. She’s never had end-of-life conversations, no advanced directives. Her husband will want to do everything possible. No decisions lead to a decision. Read More

Dec 05 2016
Love0

#CarePlanning – a Mission From God

By Advocate, Caregiver, ePatient, Family man

My wife and I built a house together – the whole house, everything except drilling the well. While building, living and improving it over 5-6 years, we had a running argument about paneling. She hated it and I loved it. It took us several years to figure out that she hated 4×8 sheets of paneling and I loved real wood paneling.  Turns out that we agreed. We had different images associated with paneling. Communication is a bitch in the best of circumstances.

No wonder that a person’s health team struggles to communicate at transitions (between team members, when adding a new team member, between people, offices, and settings) – it’s a perfect tower of Babel. In its simplest form communication is who, what and how.  Who needs to communicate? What do they need to communicate? How will they communicate?

Let’s focus on the what. What are the goals of the person on the health journey? Who’s going to do stuff to get there? When? How will these goals and activities be tracked and shared across time and settings? Read More

Apr 02 2016
Love0

Engaged with Sax

By Advocate, Caregiver, ePatient, Family man, Musician

Shopping for a new neurologist I had three screening questions:

  • What’s your response time to emails?
  • Do you use OpenNotes?
  • How would you work with my acupuncturist?

The first doc said, ‘I don’t use email, we don’t have a portal. What are OpenNotes? What do you mean you’re shopping for a neurologist? You either want me or you’re wasting my time.’ 

The second doc said, ‘If you email me, my nurse practitioner or I will get back to you within two business days. If you need us sooner, call my office.

Of course, we have OpenNotes. If I get something wrong, let me know. I know a lot about drugs and therapeutics and how they affect groups of people. But, I don’t know anything about you. My job is to learn more about you, and we’ll test different drugs and therapeutics and see what works for you. You are an experiment of one.

Oh, you use acupuncture? You’ll have to educate me. I don’t know much about that. I’m interested in anything that helps my patients. Seems like everything works for someone. And by the way, how’d I do? We could have some fun together.’
Read More

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