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A Health Information Management professional, I survived a life-threatening emergency with information that only a person of my professional experience would know. And I’m sharing it!
Showing posts with label coping strategies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coping strategies. Show all posts
It’s one thing to meet me, then to gradually realize that something is different but hard to identify. People sometimes remark on that, saying “What’s unusual about you? You’re so… upbeat. But I get the sense that you struggle with something.” That “something” resulted in my making medical history, though that was not my goal. Surviving a life-threatening medical problem and the risky emergency surgery to save me from it, was my objective. It all started when I didn’t feel well in 2003.
Doctors mentioned that they couldn’t find anything wrong with me, though I was stumbling from the effort to walk correctly, struggling to prevent food and drinks from dribbling out my mouth, and feeling tired all the time. I even struggled to read or to write, and that’s not a good situation for a writer. When I ended up in an emergency room after waking up completely blind one day, life took a dramatic whip into a whirlwind of activity focused at saving my very endangered life...
B'SD 5 Av, 5775 The Jewish month of Av is full of somber thoughts and images. Personal reflections are an integral part of the pre-Rosh Hashana season. I just joined a health-oriented listserv, and compacted my health plus healing story into a few paragraphs. The timing was conducive to some introspection. If you're new to this blog, or familiar with it, here are some of the main points I shared in the above-referenced message:
My story in brief: ... In February 2005 I awoke completely blind, and very physically weak.
To make a long story short, I underwent life-saving emergency brain surgery in August 2005. Surgeons removed a benign brain tumor called a Petroclival Tentorial Meningioma. It had crushed my optic nerves and badly damaged other nerves.
Western medical experts doubted that I would survive the ordeal let alone ever see again. I consulted with expert naturopaths. Under their guidance I became an organic vegetarian in 2006, and beat big odds. I am a rarity in the medical world, having recovered my vision - which keeps improving - after that specific diagnosis and setback. I am also physically active.
A former supervisor of medical coding who wrote feature stories about medical experts and their innovations plus other medically-related topics, and someone quite familiar with teaching calming techniques (I eventually earned counseling skills certification), I used a knowledge base about healing and centering unknown to average laymen. I remained composed despite horrific fears, physical pain and unknowns (most of the time, anyway. I definitely advocate the need to cry so that a person can go forward despite emotional turmoil).
I wrote a book about how to cope with medical challenges. Published in 2009, updated in 2011, it received cover praises from medical and mental health professionals http://booklocker.com/books/3067.html. People around the world LUV the motivational and healing information in the book plus the Global Resources section that clues you in to worldwide organizations willing to pay some or all of your specific medical bills.
Organic foods and a natural lifestyle restored my vision plus my physical strength (I had needed to learn how to speak again, how to walk, how to use my hands and arms, etc).
However, I still see double and have difficulty getting my eyes to move together. My eyes move at different speeds, as do the eyelids. One of those lids had been paralyzed. Craniosacral treatment ended the problem, restored symmetry to my face and ended post-surgical pain that could have been life-long.
The prescription for my glasses has dropped 18 times since going organic vegetarian in 2006. Ridding my body of toxins allowed damaged nerves and muscles to heal. My sight improves daily, and my health - according to medical experts - rivals that of women half my age, thank GOD.
In February 2015 I became vegan. That has provoked a most unexpected development: More and very rapid recovery of my sight. I'm at the threshold of ending double vision due to damaged optical nerves plus not needing glasses anymore. I'd like for that to happen with my 10th anniversary of a life-saving event. It would be a miracle. I believe that I can coax that miracle along with a macrobiotic diet.
I've spoken all over Israel, in the USA, on TV, radio and online media about my unusual recovery and coping mechanisms. I remain available for motivational speaking engagements as I maintain my content provider business (I edit other people's writings and prepare speeches, brochure, website, plus journalistic content for various clients).
I look forward to interacting with the rest of you either online or in person.
Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.
Fill your sense of priorities with good sense and productive action.
B'SD 11 Tamuz, 5775 One of the things I advocate for well-rounded emotions is having a hobby. I enjoy several, and thought to let you have a look at some of my dried flower arrangements
and candelabra plate
creations.
Care to guess which hobby I longed to resume though 2005 brain surgery had resulted in my surgically broken jaw (and my need to learn how to speak, all over again)?
There's a reason that I whistle as I walk. I've needed to strengthen my damaged emboucher (the relevant muscles of my face and lips) so that I can resume flute-playing. As of this past April, I've been able to get sweet sounds from my flute. Now that I've recovered from moving across the country, I hope to hire a music instructor so I can play in a pleasant manner. Stay tuned for developments. I'm still thrilling to the fact that my recent singing performance was well-received despite a long time off the community theater stage.
Please share the fun. Let me know what you do to stay grounded and joyous despite inner or outer pain. Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.
Find the coping mechanism that soothes you.
B'SD 4 Nisan, 5775 I often wonder how to share messages that speak to my male readers. Being a woman, I tend to go for content that females readily understand. That's not fair. It also misses the point of my communication efforts: Inspiring the wider world to pass its limitations, to reach for excellence when facing problems anything, let alone illness. This video portrays a message I want to share. It's packed with life lessons that all people can grow from.
That kid did the Dead Man's Crawl to a better life.
Coping with illness requires a quality common to any challenge: Pushing past your fears, anger, physical and intellectual strengths. If necessary, put your challenge into the perspective of a game, then face it with your increasingly better character.
Grow your soul. It's there inside you, waiting to flex its muscles to the max.
You'll appreciate yourself more when you do that. And some people will admire you.
I thank my real life and facebook friend Asher Blachman for bringing the video to my attention.
Find more inspiration in the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.
Fight with every ounce of decency in you. And then some.
B'SD 23 Kislev, 5775 Sometimes there's a weekly theme to this blog. This week the theme is "Super." Sometimes the shock, pain, fear, despair and/or inconvenience of a diagnosis leaves us feeling anything but "super" in the sense of "good." We tend to feel super-horrible, super scared, and super saddened by a medical challenge, not super terrific by any means.
Hold that thought as you read the blog this week.
I have a bit of a surprise coming up for you on Thursday.
But let's begin with the super-wonderful, super-heartwarming Sommers family who dealt admirably with a severe blow to its happiness.
The enthusiasm that the family generated resulted in a Rabbis Shave for the Brave event. There was even a
If you need a how-to guide for figuring out how to feel at all positive despite grim medical news, read several passages about that, spread throughout
Post traumatic growth is about putting a life-changing, or any significant event, in perspective. That promotes emotional progress and more. Figure out how to supercharge your ability to cope with your medical challenge, or someone else's.
Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism. Facing fear with growing courage empowers you to make progress.
B'SD 12 Tevet, 5773 If you haven't heard the record-making news, the Middle East has been hit by a blizzard. Desert-dwellers are not prepared for such developments, as a rule. Israel's soldiers have helped stranded motorists to reach safety, and strangers took in people who needed shelter. Sand scattered on roads, snowplows and salt are now part of the Israeli scene. Other news-worthy stuff is going on: http://www.timesofisrael.com/over-200-pregnant-women-evacuated-to-hospital-during-storm/ http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Snowfall-unites-Jerusalemites-of-diverse-faiths-334904 How the Holy Land Looks All in whitehttp://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4465376,00.html I'm thrilled to have kept a long, water-proof down coat in my closet, with thick gloves and waterproof boots for Israel's cold winters. These items have helped me to weather the days-long storm. Here's my advice for coping with some of the difficulties, fresh off one of my Facebook pages:
My indoor and/or outdoor coping tips for the cold weather: Wear leg warmers (you can knit them in a hurry), layers of clothing, and fingerless gloves alone or under regular mittens/gloves for added warmth. Wear XL kitchen gloves over your knitted gloves,to keep them dry outdoors. It's the cold water not drying out that makes hands super-duper cold. You can prevent that misery by keeping water off your hands/gloves..
I highly recommend keeping your sense of humor going strong. That lets you cope with problems. Check out this message from last week:
So natch the administrators change their minds about my medical coding class members having to attend school AFTER this morning's blizzard shuts off electricity to my classroom. I returned home soggy, happy to be alive (Israelis are so not used to driving in blizzards) and still laughing from the snowball fight i initiated with the school's guard. Gun shmun. You can't whup a Golani with a big fat snowball and a silly streak miles wide!
If you have other good suggestions to share, please comment below this blogpost. Have fun with the white stuff. Learn how to see your medical and/or mental health issues - life itself - in perspective. Get your grin back.
B'SD 13 Tamuz, 5773 As we slog through the daily grind and the frustrations of our medical, mental health or disability issues, we somehow conclude that nobody had it as bad as we do. We believe that it is impossible to overcome this or that problem. At times we are blessed with insight or some inspiration to meet difficult goals. Here's one example. Listen in as Helen Keller overcomes muteness!
Think that was a fluke? Listen to this
Ready to innovate your recovery and coping skills? Find more inspiration in doctor-recommended
It's an automatic add-on with almost any diagnosis.
Hospital stays tend to make it GROW...
Readers, I appreciate your inner and outer pain plus fear (it's a monster) as you face some sort of medical, mental health or disability crisis.
You can benefit by reading and re-reading EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge cover to cover. It's packed with cheerleading stuff PLUS coping with pain information. It even provides you with tips for how to deal with rude people: in-laws, outlaws and medical staff included!
As for banishing fear, that comes with incremental successes at doing the difficult. Think of it this way:
You're not afraid to ride your bicycle anymore, are you?
You learned to cook. And how to use a computer!
You can even stand up for yourself at times.
Somehow you managed to banish fear from your mind, or simply to function past it.
You've persevered past previous difficulties and realized, maybe for a moment, that you have even more potential. WOW!
My suggestion?
Build on your inner strengths and insights. Invent new ones, too.
Need tips on how to do that?
is packed with user-friendly ideas!
Yocheved Golani
Writing Services • Self-Help Coach for Health Issues • Author • Speaker
B'SD 6 Elul, 5772 Of the hardest challenges of illness and/or disabilities is to deal with a sense of disappointment. It feels like a growing pit in your stomach or high blood pressure and sadness. There are ways to override your sense of negativity.
One of the BIG, effective "Developing coping skills" suggestions in EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge is to develop a sense of gratitude for what IS going comfortably, "right" and easily in your medical or disability life.
My visual acuity literally changes each time I blink. Yes, I see differently with every wave of my eyelashes. That complicates things a bit. So I'm going to (alphabetically) model to you how I focus on what's going "right" in my life. I'm grateful for:
Books
Fresh air
Friends
Good food filled with nutrition and flavors I enjoy
Knowing that my vision is improving over time (the evidence is in the "Blink of my eyes" phenom)
Music
My garden of flowers and veggies
PAID bills (in today's wobbling global economy that's a BIG blessing)
Social time with people I value
Spiritual insights
That I can communicate in writing (that takes me a while but thank GOD I can persevere)
That I can do favors for other people
That people appreciate my input in their healing efforts
The ability to laugh
I'm grateful for far more but you don't have all day to read about it ;^ D
Start listing the stuff that makes you smile. Consider what else goes well in your life and helps you along. Sometimes we mortals overlook those realities. LIST THEM in some sort of journal each day. When you're feeling down and defeated, those reminders can make a mighty big difference in your life. Don't believe me? Listen to this shrink explain The Secret to Better (and BEYOND Average)...
Change the lens through which you view your realities. Start your weekend getting your grin back. Click on the title to buy the E-book or print edition to EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge today. And let me know how the book helps you. Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.
B'SD 28 Av, 5772 You just learned that you might have a medical problem. Your life might even be on the line. Or maybe you're facing some other issue that feels like the wrecking ball of your life. There are times I comfort someone deeply unhappy with the way their life is going: abusive relatives or acquaintances (they're definitely NOT friends!), choices that backfired, scary news of some sort. Heartache, physical pain, emotional upheaval, mental or physical workouts and expenses of different kinds can be part of the picture. They sap energy and sometimes hope. That's normal. Are you condemning yourself for pulling back, for withdrawing from some activities and situations? Are you loading up on feel-good calories that will bloat you? Have you done something else you hate to realize? The good news is that you're aware of better choices you can make. Let's look at some of your options. "The road to success is almost always under construction," I comment to troubled people. "Sometimes you just need time and rest to recover from the strain of it all. Then you can pick up where you left off. You might even have thought through some innovative ideas to help you along. That’s why your life is a work in progress. You work at it, rest, pick up where you left off and watch the progress." The nifty thing about that recovery period is that it lets you charge up your emotional and physical batteries. That enables you to be exceptional, to rise above the turmoil. How about just coping with the adversity in a way that restores your self-respect? Okay, here are three terrific tips for doing just that:
1. Make a list of your inner negative beliefs
on the left side of some paper
2. List your survival instincts in the middle column,
pairing them with the problems you're facing
3. On the right margin, briefly state the positive and negative thoughts or reactions you have to specific problems
Discuss all that with someone who totally respects you and can provide you with insight for how to have a better future. Face your unfolding future with empowering statements of "I will..." such as "I will control my eating behaviors," "I will plan a realistic budget," "I will find out how to behave in better ways with X, Y or Z problems." You can start crossing off the negativity notes as you make progress with your unfolding future. You're realizing your better self, now. Enjoy the process and take notes on what improves in your life!
