Wednesday, March 28, 2012
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Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Does Illness Make You Wiser?
Does suffering make you wise, or just cranky? Does illness teach you to be more compassionate, or impatient? I'd like to believe that one of the lessons my pain gave me is to appreciate the small things that are exquisite and to let the big things that are really small just flow over me, like a passing shadow.
And I'd especially like to believe that the love and care Richard showed me as he helped me every day is a gift I treasure and return every day.
The truth is a bit of everything, as it often is.
I am wiser for having suffered. I learned about what was hidden in the inner recesses, and I learned not to be afraid of that or of anything, except more pain. I learned to accept unconditional love and unselfish caretaking -- a harder task than I imagined it would be. And, most days, I do remember that nothing is life or death, except, well, life or death.
But I do sweat the small stuff. The neighbor's car parked too close to the driveway. The colleague who oversteps his bounds and acts like a jerk while thinking he is being magnanimous. Even the remote control that's out of synch with the TV and will change the channel or adjust the volume, but not do both.
And I get cranky and impatient with Richard when he steps around the bin of recycles instead of taking it out to the curb. Or when he reads a piece of my writing and corrects the grammar instead of telling me how elegant the concepts are. I do love and appreciate him even day - just not to the exclusion of getting annoyed at the small stuff.
I wish I were wiser and more compassionate. I keep trying. I guess illness gave me potential, and the rest is up to me now.
What have you learned from your illness?
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Loving After Cancer
Excerpts from an article in the Jerusalem Post about a subject that rarely gets addressed. The whole article is worth reading.
The article refers to the work of two clinicians: Prof. Sharon Bober, a clinical and research psychologist at Harvard Medical School’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Dr. Rivka Klein, a Jerusalem-based clinical social worker and sex therapist who received her PhD in social work at the Hebrew University
How to bring the loving back after cancer
It’s unfortunately an “unmentionable” subject that even makes many physicians blush – and many others avoid raising the subject at all. But as growing numbers of cancer survivors want to resume intimate relations with their partners, raising awareness of the problem and offering clinical help need to be put on the agenda.
... Returning to one’s previous level of intimacy can often be a problem, because surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormonal medications may cause a lot of long-term side effects that interfere with sex.”
Sexuality, she says, is an experience at the junction of mind, body and relationship, and cancer treatment can affect all of those elements. From the first session, she tells patients that sexual dysfunction deserves as much attention as any other quality-of-life issue; that the problems should not cause embarrassment or shame; and that there are treatments that really work.
Cancer treatment may result in heart damage, kidney problems and disruptions of both male and female sexual function.
Men can become impotent, while women who had ovarian cancer can be propelled into early menopause. Other types of cancer can also have side effects.
....the example of one 38-year-old woman who suddenly lost her ovaries to cancer. “She hadn’t been told about what would come next in her life. She wasn’t ready for it. Her doctors told her she should be happy to be alive. But she and her partner suffered from her hot flashes, vaginal dryness, fatigue, dramatic loss of estrogen and lack of libido. She was depressed.”
Usually, either the patient is ashamed to raise the issue or afraid to embarrass their doctor – or the physician doesn’t know enough to raise it or afraid to embarrass the patient.”
The longer patients wait to undergo rehabilitation of their sexual functions, the harder it is to preserve.
“There are a lot of people who specialize in sexual medicine, but only a small subset who work with cardiac and cancer survivors and medical illness. Even younger cardiologists and oncologists may feel no obligation to talk about sexual function with their patients or don’t like to discuss it themselves. We have studied primary care doctors, many of whom weren’t prepared for broaching the subject.”
But “patients usually need psychological treatment, an integrative mind/body model. Women who have had a mastectomy, for example, usually feel very unattractive.
“It would be great if not only doctors were educated and willing to discuss these issues, but patients were also willing to hear about them,” they conclude. “There is no reason why people have to suffer in silence. They have suffered enough already."
Sexuality, she says, is an experience at the junction of mind, body and relationship, and cancer treatment can affect all of those elements. From the first session, she tells patients that sexual dysfunction deserves as much attention as any other quality-of-life issue; that the problems should not cause embarrassment or shame; and that there are treatments that really work.
Cancer treatment may result in heart damage, kidney problems and disruptions of both male and female sexual function.
Men can become impotent, while women who had ovarian cancer can be propelled into early menopause. Other types of cancer can also have side effects.
....the example of one 38-year-old woman who suddenly lost her ovaries to cancer. “She hadn’t been told about what would come next in her life. She wasn’t ready for it. Her doctors told her she should be happy to be alive. But she and her partner suffered from her hot flashes, vaginal dryness, fatigue, dramatic loss of estrogen and lack of libido. She was depressed.”
Usually, either the patient is ashamed to raise the issue or afraid to embarrass their doctor – or the physician doesn’t know enough to raise it or afraid to embarrass the patient.”
The longer patients wait to undergo rehabilitation of their sexual functions, the harder it is to preserve.
“There are a lot of people who specialize in sexual medicine, but only a small subset who work with cardiac and cancer survivors and medical illness. Even younger cardiologists and oncologists may feel no obligation to talk about sexual function with their patients or don’t like to discuss it themselves. We have studied primary care doctors, many of whom weren’t prepared for broaching the subject.”
But “patients usually need psychological treatment, an integrative mind/body model. Women who have had a mastectomy, for example, usually feel very unattractive.
“It would be great if not only doctors were educated and willing to discuss these issues, but patients were also willing to hear about them,” they conclude. “There is no reason why people have to suffer in silence. They have suffered enough already."
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
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