The Guilt of Illness

The sick partner feels guilty for being sick. For changing the game plan of the relationship. For not being able to do the things s/he used to, things ordinary couples get to do without a second thought. For having a hard day. For eating up savings that should have gone to the kids' college fund or retirement.

The well partner feels guilty for being well. For being in a different place than the ill partner. For being able to still socialize, do sports, even have some fun. For not being able to make the ill partner better. For feeling angry, afraid, and exhausted. For wishing this would all stop and get back to the way things used to be.

What's the benefit of carrying so much guilt? Not much.

Guilt doesn't act as a bridge, creating a conduit between two struggling people. Guilt can't repair health. Guilt doesn't bring laughter into the room.

Guilt turns off the lights and shuts the door.

Two guilt-ridden partners means two people hunkered down in their separate corners, hiding from the light in each others' eyes. Each person, alone, feeling bad over something they had no hand in making.

What's the way out of guilt?

Stand up, hold each other, and jointly say, "This sucks." Not, "I'm bad," or "You're bad." but rather: "The situation we are in is terrible. We are both so sad that this is changing the future we had planned. I'll be with you when you are hurting. I'll give you space when you need it."

Where do you feel guilt? How does it affect you? What do you do about it?

This Week's Grand Rounds Collection of Health Care Blog Posts

Check it out at Dr. Anonymous. Many diverse and interesting posts.

Uncommon remedy for heart disease and strokes.

Liquidambar, or Sweet gum as it is also known is a diciduous tree found in North America. Tinctures can be extracted from its bark and used as an unusual remedy for natural healing. The fruits contain beturonic acid, a substance that appears to protect the liver from damage by extremely toxic dry-cleaning chemicals such as Carbon tetrachloride.

Traditionally the fruits are used in Taiwan for liver problems and hepatitis.

Liquidambar has analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-rheumatic properties and thus promotes healing. In North America it is used to heal wounds and for skin complaints. It is interesting to note that Liquidambar has other medicinal uses, such as in treating strokes, infantile convulsions, coma, heart disease and pruritus. Externally it can be mixed with olive oil for scabies.

You can buy Liquidambar tablets online, although you would be best advised to check with your natural therapist first.




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Would You Place Your Ill Partner in a Nursing Home?

I recently heard a story about a couple in which the wife has had Huntington's Disease for twenty years. They married in their early thirties and she was diagnosed five years later. Over the course of the last two decades, each exacerbation has left her at a lower level of functioning. For the past ten years, she has lost her ability to do any self care, to transfer herself from bed to toilet and back to bed, and to speak. Over the past five years, her cognitive abilities have become compromised.

Her husband has been her steadfast caretaker for all this time. He modified their house to make it handicap accessible. He found aides and home health care providers to help with her care. He took her to try many avenues of treatment. He was the primary parent. And he worked at a full time job.

Now, after twenty years, he realizes he just can't do it any more. He has his own physical conditions, and he is bone weary and wants more joy in his life as he enters his own final decades. He is afraid that if he keeps being the primary caretaker, he will get sick and be unable to help his wife at all.

He decided to place her in a high quality nursing home - for her sake and for his.

This is one of the toughest issues couples dealing with debilitating illness face. What do you think about this man's decision? Have you made the decision to place your ill partner in a nursing home or other long term care facility? Would you ever consider doing this?

Two Blog Carnivals of Interest

Check them out:

a patient centered blog carnival is up at Getting Closer to Myself.

a carnival about pain related issues is up at How To Cope With Pain.

Do You Let Your Partner Read Your Journal?

I know many people who are living with illness who keep a journal, and several well partners who do also.

The writers tell me that they are able to express themselves, unfiltered and unchallenged, in their journals and feel enlightened and purged. They can write nasty things about the nasty doctors who insinuate that they are malingering or depressed. They can write about the heartache that attaches to all the things they are no longer able to do, alone or with the partner. And they can write secret thoughts - about wanting it to all be over, or rage at the ill partner for being ill or rage at the well partner for being well.

I kept a journal during my first year of illness when my pain condition was out of control and seemingly undiagnosable. I wrote like an avalanche. Words exploded onto the page. At times it felt as if a switch in my consciousness had been shut off and language streamed out from a source more limbic.

I wrote about my mother's voraciousness and my father's sedateness. I wrote about Richard's endless kindness and my crushing ambivalence over wanting him to do even more and fearing that one more request to hold my while I cried would finally shatter him. I wote about my yearning for Paris and my resistance to stepping even a few feet outside and facing the unbearable contrast between my limitations and nature's perseverance.

Sometimes people give children a present of a dreamcatcher -- an object made form sticks and strings crafted into the shape of a web, decorated with beads and feathers. It is used as a charm to protect sleeping children from nightmares. My journals were my dreamcatcher. They bound my terrors so that I could focus on ways to try to lessen my physical pain.

At the end of every day, I showed Richard the pages I had written. I showed him so he could keep pace with me and so that I wouldn't have to say any of the things I wrote about out loud. It was a form of intimacy.

Do you keep a journal? What does writing a journal do for you? And do you ever share it with your partner?

One of the top home natural healer's

One of my favorite natural remedies that is a great benefit to my health, and is used widely in alternative health is the fatty acid Omega-3.

You may think that fat is bad for you but Omega-3 mainly found in salmon, mackerel, and fresh tuna plays a key role in many vital body processes.

I have used Omega-3, in supplement form, for many years in the hope it will lower cholesterol levels, and lower blood pressure. I am sure it has helped my health to some degree. The recommended dose of fish oil supplements is usually 3,000-5,000mg per day.

In natural therapy, Omega-3 is used for the following conditions:
Arthritis, Asthma, Bursitis and tendinitis, Depression, Dry skin, Eczema, Gout, High blood pressure, High cholesterol. Hives, Inflammatory bowel disease, Memory problems, Menstrual problems, Nail problems, Palpitations, Prostate problems, Psoriasis and Wrinkles. There is also some evidence that cancer may also be helped with Omega-3.

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