We're talking about what it means to "let go." Because if patients run out of treatment options or they are nearing death, "letting go" plays a major role in Healthy Survivorship. So here's another definition:
An op-ed piece in yesterday's Los Angeles Times by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman presents a simple and provocative tool that "works in all kinds of crises – medical, legal, even existential." It's called the 'Ring Theory' of complaining.
Imagine that compassionate patient navigators accompany each patient to every doctor visit, test and treatment. Why would compassion continue to be an essential element of high-quality care?
A physician's encouraging word or hand squeeze can mean the world to a patient, buoying the patient's courage and fortitude. But in today's complex world of high-tech medicine, what patients need most from their physicians is what I call "medical" compassion:
Since my beloved mother-in-law Jean died on Monday, the years of her illness have been fading from my memory, leaving me with a menagerie of enduring mental images of her. I’d like to share just a few.
Recent news that IBM's supercomputer "Watson" has teamed up with Memorial Sloan Kettering in patient care provides a nice introduction to a blog series on compassion and computers.
A mother describes her distress over her daughters getting tested for a genetic mutation (BRCA) that may predispose them to the same cancer for which she was treated successfully. She knows this is not her fault, yet she feels dreadfully guilty.
Thanks for the support while I took a brief break from blogging to devote my good hours to writing a first draft of an upcoming new keynote. The writing went more quickly than anticipated.
As soon as I have a solid draft to work on, I'll get back to blogging about Healthy Survivorship. Until then, wishing you the strength, courage, patience, humor and fortitude to get good care and live as fully as possible today, tomorrow and every day.
In my last post, I responded to an article in the NYTimes Well Blog by Emma Pierson, who shares how learning she carries a cancer gene has transformed her life.
Faced with "the cruel weight of a paradox: you can never know whether you want to know until you already do," what do Healthy Survivors do?
On the NYTimes Well Blog, 21-year-old Emma Pierson eloquently shares the impact of having learned she carries the BRCA1 mutation, a finding associated with a 98% chance of developing cancer in her lifetime. You'll read how...
Thanks for bearing with the dry, didactic nature of my last post. That skeletal history of orphan drugs set the stage for today's post on "Entering the Age of the $1 Million Medicine."
Maybe it is because I'm a writer, but a story that appeared in the NYTimes sports section is now laminated and in my personal file of most inspiring stories. I urge you to carve out two minutes to read it:
Geared to clinicians, this article offers takeaways useful to Healthy Survivors who want to help their physicians provide useful recommendations and want to respond to recommendations in healthy ways.
"The Gift of Nothing" is a sweet book that takes less than five minutes to read. As you engage in end-of-year reflections and resolutions, check out this gift book to help you look to 2013 with renewed hope.
JAJF sends each family on a tailor-made all-expense-paid trip to provide a place where...
The whole family can escape the drudgery, pain and sadness of a parent's terminal illness
The dying parent can focus on enjoying and loving the children
The children can create joy-filled family memories to last a lifetime after their parent dies
These trips that are priceless to the families are expensive for the Foundation. As founder Jon Albert says, "Thank you for helping JAJF be the only organization in the country: Treating the families; not the cancer®."
You have lots of choices regarding your end-of-year donations. A donation to JAJF is a huge gift that promotes healing where the best available treatments fail. To view video, click here. To donate, click here.
Here are more reflections on the December 11th NYTimes article about the 11th-hour rescue of a dying 6-year-old girl with an investigational treatment. I hope you find them useful in the pursuit of Healthy Survivorship.
Yesterday's NYTimes article about the 11th-hour rescue of a dying 6-year-old girl with an investigational treatment created a lot of buzz. Here are a few reflections on the story that might be useful to Healthy Survivors.
Parents going through chemo often struggle to explain their alopecia (hair loss) to their young children. The rhyming verse in Nowhere Hair offers a healing conversation-starter that is both whimsical and profound.
