Chronic Illness Book Recommendations

[Sunfish]

I'd been meaning to post these for awhile but the recent posts asking about info for moms & marriages got me off my behind. I'd recommend all of the following:

The Etiquette of Illness: What to Say When You Can't Find the Words

by: Susan Halpern (a cancer survivor & social worker herself)

Highlights: a chapter on chronic illness & on patient-doctor relations

Overall a GREAT book that I am considering purchasing (and that I'd like to slip to some I know as a not-so-subtle lesson!)

Cereal For Dinner: Strategies, Shortcuts & Sanity for Moms Battling Illness

by: Kristine Breese (who describes her own illness, including fainting & diagnosis of heart stopping during her tilt test!)

Highlights: Good stuff even for non-moms re: friendships, hospital stays, asking for help, dealing with docs

Celebrate Life...New Attitudes for Living with Chronic Illness

by: Kathleen Lewis

I read this awhile ago so don't remember specifics but just brought it home from the library again & figured I'd include it.

I found all of these at my local library. I'd recommend them all...

:-)melissa

[Sunfish]

I'm bumping b/c I want to make sure as many folks as possible see these...they're really good!

:-)melissa

[Sunfish]

And I have one other addition....

Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness, A Reluctant Memoir

by: Richard Cohen

The author is the husband of Meredith Viera (sp?) from The View & has MS. He was diagnosed in his mid-twenties. For some reason I had a bit of a tough time getting into it...not b/c it was hard to read but for some reason it just seemed a bit awkward...but who knows...once I did get into it though there were parts I REALLY liked/could relate to. I started copying down quotes but it became too tedious so I switched to marking pages with post it notes which I then copied before returning it to the library! In particular in terms of issues with self-acceptance, work decisions, trying to maintain normalacy, etc. Also parts about marriage & kids (which I cannot relate to...yet ).

Has anyone else read this or any of the other books I listed above? Any thoughts?

:-)melissa

[avais1]

I found a really good one that has helped me and my colleagues:

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn

It includes the full 8 week program for stress reduction (due to stress, pain, illness) that is taught by the University of Massachusettes Medical Center. Great book, wonderful techniques.