Patients Make their Voices Heard!

B'SD

24 Shvat, 5777

I want to share what I consider to be an extraordinary article with you. Perhaps you'll feel enabled to speak up more, or at all, about the course of YOUR health care!

A Patient's Journey: 
The First That Was Almost Forgotten

Let me know your thoughts about Mr Wolinsky's experience.

And please know, this is not the first time that a patient has addressed the wider medical world. The trend is increasingly popular as medical professionals realize its necessity.





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 airspace with courage and your voice.

When Having Disabilities Means FUN and Accomplishment!

B'SD

16 Elul, 5776

WOW, this is exciting news about empowerment! Disabilities, aka differently abled abilities, need not hold back enthusiasm nor best efforts! That means FUN!

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/217942

Paralympic Games had a Jewish founding father

The founder of the Paralympics was a Jewish doctor who escaped the Holocaust by fleeing Nazi Germany.

ISRAELNATIONALNEWS.COM

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Love

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Read about how to develop a Can-Do Attitude 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.

Fill your life with can-do messages and actions!

Deep Sea Diving in a Wheelchair

B'SD

6 Sivan, 5773

I've been enjoying the Lights Festival in Jerusalem, Israel the past few days. I mentioned to friends that it's a miracle I can see the many steps and Jerusalem stone paths, even in darkness. I prayed thanks to GOD for that.

My determination to never let my vision disability disrupt my joy in life is a huge factor in the quality of my life. GOD is in the details. 

I keep the door open to miraculous possibilities. 

You can read about how to do that in

Here's another woman's take on living life to the fullest despite medical or disability issue.

Read all about how to EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Live and enjoy your own excitement!

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.

Face Your Future with Optimism. See and live life with fulfilling perspective. 

 

Eat Chocolate, Lose Weight and Miracles to Make Us Laugh

B'SD

6 Cheshvan, 5773

A snarky comment to indicate skepticism goes something like this: "Eat Chocolate and LOSE Weight!" The funny thing is, I do eat a specific amount of chocolate daily, and lost weight when I needed to anyway. My dining habits are sound, and the brand of chocolate I use is low in sugar, high in theobroma/cacao. That supports heart and brain health, but not wide waistlines.

There's a Spanish saying I enjoy, "Las cosas claras y el chocolate espeso" (Ideas should be clear and chocolate thick). On that note I'll share a little miracle with you.

I was in the BIG city of Jerusalem today,
wondering which miracles 
might happen to me. 

I was surprised when I 

unintentionally met up with 

a guy who has a television show. 

He asked if he could feature me on it 
tomorrow. 

I answered "Yes, I'd be delighted!"
(as I laughed to myself 
"This is kinda miraculous!").

Let me know what you'd like to me to speak about FAST! Leave your comments below this blogpost.

The possible topics are:

• The EMPOWER Yourself book,

• The medical miracles in my life,

• How to make miracles happen (trust me, there are tried and true ways - within limits)

• Or something else.

Let's find out if talking about miracles or other medical issues can have us sharing a few laughs. Laughter is very good for health! 

Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter holiday season: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. You just might learn how to let chocolate help but not hurt you, too!

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

How to Lower the Cost of Your Disability, Mental Health or Physical Illness with Humor & Information

B'SD


13 Tamuz, 5772


I'm still smiling from the terrific interaction on yesterday's Winning Through Pain radio show with hostess Marla Martindale.


Some people have contacted me to ask: "What else can you say about the EMPOWER Yourself book and how it can help someone with an illness?"


My answer: It helps people of all ages and for many reasons including emotional, mental health, disabilities and physical health issues.


Men are some of the most enthusiastic readers of It’s MY Crisis! And I’ll Cry If I Need To: EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. They call or write to thank me often. I suspect that I know why they like it so much. 


The book is FILLED with privacy-protected answers to questions they need and want to ask. Too often men are simply unaware of whom they can trust to answer them and to protect their confidentiality. The EMPOWER Yourself book is a safe outlet with information that men and everybody need. EMPOWER Yourself lets you calm down, read and re-read the sections important to you in the confidential surroundings of your home, office or wherever you read the book. Men can even cry with the book and know that I’ll respect them later.

As I tell my Self-Help Coaching clients and book buyers, "A medical crisis - you'd cry too, if it happened to you. Use your tissues and handkerchiefs with my blessings borne of experience. GOD gives you Permission to Weep. And you can say that to any critics after explaining that 'It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry if I Need To.'"

That license to cry appears on pages 4 and 5 of the book. 


About that sense of humor you hear in my voice and in the book: It goes on the fritz at times because I'm normal, but it is a tool that I improve on, put away if necessary and take out again as needed. It helps me and other people past heartache. It’s saving my life. 

That humor and happiness effort became a habit and then a permanent mindset. Healthy people think positively without trying. Pollyanna had it right: Putting positive thoughts in our heads is a Glad Game. True, it is difficult at first and that puts more pressure on us when we’re in a negative state of mind. We feel guilty that we’re stuck in a lousy thinking pattern, that we can’t change our thoughts from negative to positive. So I keep life simple – problems are things to master, to overcome one little bit at a time. I choose to cope with my vision disability. I chose to cope with the RSD thing. Both of them have left or are leaving my life. 

I have days when my mood is not upbeat, but I accept that as part of being normal. Who could possibly be happy every moment every day? There are legitimate reasons for being sad, subdued or tired and frustrated. We can use the down time to recharge our spiritual, emotional and physical batteries. We reconnect with GOD that way, when we search for answers and solutions. Then we can think about how to get past the problem before us or how to accept the limitation with gracious behavior and thinking. That includes how to deal with medical and disability expenses.

Look at the expense of medical care these days. Not many people are giving out calming, cost-cutting answers. But It’s MY Crisis! And I’ll Cry If I Need To: EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge gives them to you. 


I used my professional background in Health Information Management to write the book, including the Global Resources section at the back. It clues you into charitable organizations that pay for part, or all, of specific medical bills if you can’t afford them. 

Here’s another important thing that I mentioned on the show and I want to stress the point here: I believe in humor because it is a coping tool.  Here’s one of the upbeat items listed in the Global Resources section of EMPOWER Yourself: Gimp on the Go, a resource with a sense of humor. Adam Lloyd is a quadriplegic involved in business, journalism and helping individuals with disabilities to finesse travel needs with his online Disabilities Travel Publication. A comprehensive look at coping mechanisms and travel successes in pictures, anecdotes and more, it's at www.gimponthego.com. 

The EMPOWER Yourself book holds many more terrific resources for helping ill people to help themselves.

We humans tend to be lazy and frightened. We want to avoid doing inner or physical work and confronting inner demons. So, we need to make breakthroughs. We can hit rock bottom and decide to rise or gain an insight that enlightens us to the wonder and happiness of self-improvement. Think of it like this: for a seed to grow, we must place in the ground. Covered in darkness, it struggles to reach the light and to grow. As it does, we watch the wonder and the beauty.  THAT is how people grow, too. We reach past the darkness and sometimes for each other. We hang on to faith and do whatever helps us to persevere.

People around the world are laughing along with the healing humor and can-do health tips in doctor-recommended EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. It helps readers to make that breakthrough into "I can help myself to heal and I'm doing it! No excuses!" thinking and behavior. And wow it cuts the cost of personal health care with information on how to get free or low-cost first-quality medication, medical care, medical appliances and more.

There are plenty of reasons that I chose the “Face your medical problems with dignity. Face your future with optimism” motto for my book-related blog and Self-Help coaching services. 


An improving and protected sense of dignity plus ever-better optimism and solid information help ill people to cope with medical, mental health and disability challenges. You can overcome despair that way, and allow yourself to heal emotionally, even physically despite devastating setbacks. We hear these great sayings over time, but I learned the lessons in my gut and every cell of my body. My readers can, too.

Every medical professional owes it to their patients to ask, “How can I help you today?” If they don’t, you’ll know what to do when you read 

Medical and mental health professionals recommend its "persevere past emotional and physical pain" message. So do clergy of different faiths. 

You can learn the lessons to help you when you buy the book from the publisher, Booklocker, which ships way faster than online book stores. Go to I'm buying the book NOW! 





Buy the E-book or print edition today. Improve your prospects for a better, brighter today and tomorrow with EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

Stand By for Updates

B'SD

23/24 Iyar 5772


I'm not sure how much online time I'll be sharing after tomorrow. I'm scheduled for outpatient surgery and I'll need time to heal for a few days. If you don't hear from me, know that I'll be reading print materials, chatting with people face to face or sitting in my lovely garden to soak up healing sun rays, pretty sights and honeysuckle perfume. Ahh...






Why am I in so little pain and not even flustered over impending medical care? I read EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge! Buy it from Booklocker at  http://booklocker.com/books/3067.html.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

What to Do When Drugs Cause Problems they Should Prevent!

B'SD

28 Cheshvan 5771


This New York Times article names a nasty drug development and marketing problem hurting defenseless people already seriously ill and a possible solution: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/health/policy/17drug.html

I read it and then responded to a relevant LinkedIn discussion. I hope this URL will work for non-members of LinkedIn:

When Drugs Cause Problems
they Should Prevent!

If the link didn't work for you, read this reproduced repartee:

John Puma MD asked, "Is this part of DIY, farmers markets before pharmacies, Facebook before family doc, food before drugs? Is it one idea?"

I responded, "It's an interesting take on a difficult dilemma: struggling to prevent one serious problem as we're inadvertently causing others. The intense, short-term pressure to seize solutions before their long-term effects are assessed is gut-wrenching. There are very real time limits on when we can no longer try to salvage or to save endangered lives. So we plunge into the Unknown hoping for the best. But some alleged Unknowns aren't. Evidence exists that some alternatives are better than drugs and surgery. But knowledge of those alternatives might be suppressed/unintentionally limited.

John, I've participated in discussions on this and other LinkedIn lists, and share a consensus with fellow respondents that food can - demonstrably - be medicine. FWIW, I advocate the use of superb nutrition while or instead of pursuing medical procedures. The effects of nutrition have been observed for thousands of years. Their trials are over. Dr .Dean Ornish reverses heart disease with food and lifestyle changes instead of cardiac procedures. Other medical trailblazers do likewise. Choosing low-tech lifestyle changes is risky, frightening and a personal judgment call. It's not a sure thing in any manner. But documented evidence proves that alternative healing/prevention techniques do succeed.

I'm marketing a feature story I wrote about extremely effective low-tech solutions for making the most of the remaining vision in brain-injured patients. The lesson of the medical experts quoted in my piece is this: western medicine too often opts for expensive procedures and/or medications when less lucrative, equally or more effective solutions exist. Patients are not necessarily fully informed of those low-cost, low-risk and high-yield options. Medical practitioners are pressured to make sustainable incomes as insurance companies pull their financial chains. It all makes for a moral mess.

I don't know how best to respond to your "Is this part of DIY?" question with guaranteed validity. I'll take a risk and remark that opening the discussion to invite broader thought processes and considerations (far beyond merely one idea) is a step in very productive directions.

I'm grateful that you have the courage to broach the topic. BTW, I recovered my sight due to a horrific medical situation that almost killed me. Surgery saved my life but not my sight. That returned after I made lifestyle changes. Shocked the heck outta my medical team (mostly teaching professors). I explain how similar choices can save other lives and their quality in an E-book praised by medical and mental health professionals: It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry If I Need To: EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge."


John summed up our thoughts with "Thanks for the really thoughtful response, Yocheved, and good luck with your feature story: I think entertainment venues are underestimated in medicine as effective ways of communicating and actually healing as well. Warm regards, JL"

~*~

Readers, I hope that you and someone who cares about you will ask important questions about the medications recommended to you. The impact on your life could be very, very important.

BTW, I might need to take some time off from updating the blog. My life is a bit hectic just now. I'll do my best to tap at you regularly and ask that you forgive me for occasional lapses.

A Resource Center for Meeting Your Medical Needs: Quick and convenient E-book EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

Simple Solutions to Medical Problems and More Good News!

B'SD

9 Elul 5770


Here are some simple ways to answer your questions about medical issues and solutions:

Health Behavior News Service
http://www.hbns.org/

and

EmpowerHer

http://www.empowher.com/

They might interview me in the near future, which is how I learned of them. The good news is getting better; the medical world is becoming more approachable, less frightening and open to patient input.

Soothe yourself more with my book. I wrote it from your point of view. It comes highly recommended by medical and mental health professionals.

Buy it today at http://www.booklocker.com/books/4244.html

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

Pure Comfort in a Book

B'SD


10 Adar 5770



A reader (Rachel Schanzer) called me one night, to thank me for including a poem she'd read in 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.

She found the thoughts in it comforting, and the rest of the book helpful, too.

She'd read it at her doctor's office, where a well-thumbed copy sits in the waiting room. Smart doctor, huh? He likes calm patients empowered to succeed with their treatments.


Another medical practitioner is restocking her office's sold-out supply of the first edition. AGAIN. It's still selling briskly ;^ )

Meanwhile, E-book It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry If I Need To: EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge is helping readers worldwide with even more information and calming techniques!

Want to meet me? I'm considering offers for a US speaking tour. Let me know if you'd like to host me in your community.




EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

Coping with a Medical Crisis?
Make the Changes You Need in Your Life

Vacation Fun Heals the Spirit!

B'SD

17 Tevet 5770

I've been savoring every moment of my vacation time that began last week. I'm still participating on the archaeological dig I joined on Thursday. Once I get permission to post some photos, I can share the excitement with you.

Taking a total break from daily routine is a refreshing experience. It lets the body and mind react to life in unrehearsed ways. That lets tired excuses, boring routines and old complaints disappear into the ether (yep, I benefit from that, too). You fill with a sense of fun, adventure and productive perspective that can help you far into the future.

For me, well, gosh it's fun to stop writing about other people and meeting deadlines all the time! And though my vision is still repairing with holistic care, I'm pretty handy at dealing with stuff situated or held only inches from my face. My team digs in a sitting or tummy-down position, then we hold stuff to clean away dirt. We've unearthed a wall, broken pottery shards already being pieced together, and... who knows what'll turn up next?!

Well, gotta go dig up the past, brush off the dirt and hold it in my hands to make history come alive again. It's been some project getting my clothes clean at the end of the day ;^ )

What are YOU doing to EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge?

Yocheved Golani
Coping with a Medical Crisis?
Make the Changes You Need in Your Life

A GEM of a Holiday Show!

B'SD

26 Kislev 5770


Being cheerful at this time of year is one of the hardest things for people facing illness. My coaching work focuses on overcoming the usual obstacles. Here is a GEM of a hopeful message about a universe filled with surprises, hidden and to-be-realized blessings:

The 3-Day Geminid Meteor Shower Begins Tonight!

Catch a falling star in your sights in this evening's sky, and ponder the personal possibilities. Then, make a choice to EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

(sorry about the date gaffes in some recent posts. Blogger and I are at odds about the time zone I live in, let alone that the Jewish day begins at sundown. The dates on my blogposts sometimes seem a bit kerflooey though I try to adjust things behind the scenes ;^ )

To your optimal health,

Yocheved Golani
Coping with a Medical Crisis?
Make the Changes You Need in Your Life

Make Smart Choices to Cope with Medical Situations

B'SD

13 Elul 5769


Here's a joke to illustrate an important point for people facing illness:

Joe bumps into his old friend Bob.

"Bob," he says. "You've put on weight!

Your hair turned gray, man."

"You seem a few inches shorter than I recall.

Your cheeks are puffy. Ya even walk differently.

Ya sound different. What's happened to you?"

"I'm not Bob," the gentleman replies.

"Wow! You even changed your name," Joe says.

Moral Lesson: Patients can err the same way, mistaking any & all medical people to be Information Man/Woman.

Your doctors, nurses and therapists are not Bob - Information Man/Woman - either.

Sure you need affordable insurance, a means for buying necessary medication, coping skills for the pain that seems to make you "crazy," and a way to manage all the mounting details in your medical life.

You want to know HOW to do all that. You politely ask, maybe insist on, or eventually demand answers from your doctors and nurses. NOW.

But your medical team can't possibly know

the answers to all your questions.

Doctors and nurses specialize in medical care. They owe you competence, respect & acceptance. They're not computers or librarians though you wish they were.

You need resources, not a captive audience.

Reexamine your demands. Empower yourself with smart choices and coping information.

CLICK HERE to EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with YOUR Medical Challenge

Yocheved Golani
Coping with a Medical Crisis?
Make the Changes You Need in Your Life