10 Tamuz 5768
You might recall that a US-based woman with a meningioma had contacted me months ago, seeking advice and reassurance.
We've been communicating with each other since then. She accepted the responsibility to A) calm herself down and B) to inform family members of her diagnosis PLUS her need for compassionate help.
Her husband felt immense relief about facing reality, and helped his wife a great deal. The children lost the stress over a family secret that no longer threatened anyone. Mom's cured. She's feeling more cheerful each day. That's a big change from the terror she'd felt long ago. More importantly, her improved attitude let her and her family heal!
Another of my readers, helping his brother to overcome Glioblastoma Multiforme, also keeps an open line of communication with me. They remain hopeful, looking toward a better future. The upbeat attitudes enable the diagnosed brother to live for a cure.
I hear from some of my other book and blog fans, too.
This past weekend, I was doing some rapid-fire E-mails with a man whose son has suffered with RSD/CRPS for more than a year. I updated Dad on several strategies for beating back the pain and for promoting his son's total recovery from the problem. Father and son are already pursuing two of the strategies I recommended. Time will tell if these responses will resolve the RSD, or if another option is called for.
Those people and others I haven't mentioned are making progress at coping with, and at recovering from, medical crises.
Are you wondering why they're doing so great in a medical crisis and how you can, too? Read on to learn some answers.
As I know from my counseling coursework and from live counseling sessions, the key to making progress is mysterious to many people. That key, however, is hiding in plain sight. Here's part of it, a saying that you can copy down and post on your bathroom mirrors, on your refrigerators, and inside your day-planners:
It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous, but rather the studious way we try to hide them, and our desire to act as if they did not exist. - Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), Poet
What Leopardi meant is this: A sense of shame, embarassment, concerns about status et cetera, hold us back from healing emotionally and physically. So does refusing to do hard work that leads to healing and/or coping skills.
The average human being needs to hear an important idea repeated many times so they can "get it." Scroll to the next paragraph for a quick review.
Famous emotionally/physically healed people such as Bernadine Healy (the former head of the National Institiutes of Health and of the American Red Cross), Morrie Schwartz from "Tuesdays with Morrie" or Norman Cousins from "Anatomy of an Illness" had something in common. You can have it, too. It's this:
They faced the reality of their disease(s) or other health problem(s) honestly, with a growing sense of humor and intentional optimisim.
When they did not feel well or optimistic, they faked it. Practicing optimism teaches the brain to remain in Optimism Mode. Ask a shrink. It's true.
The optimism facilitated their coping mechanisms and physical healing.
These individuals had faced cancer or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) aka Lous Gehrig's Disease. They're complicated diseases with hard-to-endure consequences and treatments, and all the emotional strain that comes with those problems.
By focusing on solutions rather than on the difficulties, Healy, Schwartz and Cousins brought improving mental and/or physical health into their lives. Look in the mirror and see much of the answer to your question about how to cope with medical crises.
I did the same thing with my meningioma diagnosis, with my very complicated arm fracture worsened with RSD/CRPS, and with all the recovery I've done since then (correcting vision problems so much that my eyewear prescription was lowered 10 times in 2 years; rebuilding damaged muscle and bone; regaining physical strength and retaining my IQ despite the onslaught of neurological issues before, during and after surgery). Remember: medical professionals expected me to remain very disabled after my emergency brain surgery. Alive, but disabled. I CHOSE to overcome as many setbacks as possible. Doctors did what they could. The rest was up to me (and GOD).
My health is at the point that observers must be told what I've endured. They can't tell from spending time with me. My medical team is impressed (to say the least) about my physical and emotional condition. Some doctors are preparing articles about my medical miracles because they're pleased to have been part of them.
Now, back to you.
You want to know how to heal, too. And you don't know how to mimic what I or those famous people did to cope with or to heal from medical crises.
Here's the other part of the key I referenced above:
You MAKE A COMMITMENT
to coping and to healing
AND STICK WITH IT.
Stay on task: Focus on healing. Do not sabotage your efforts with tantrums. Do the painful exercises. Remain on the limited food diet that your health requires. That's called COPING, and it lets you HEAL.
It's My Crisis! And I'll Cry if I Need To: A Life Book that Helps You to Dry Your Tears and to Cope with a Medical Challenge
teaches you, step-by-step, how to develop the mental/emotional skills for creating that sense of commitment and how to carry it out. You'll learn to live an optimistic life by reading my book.
To your good health,
Yojeved Golani
Coping with a Medical Crisis?
Make the Changes You Need in Your Life.
