Two Other Books to Recommend

I highly recommend these two books.  They will create openings for you:

The Last Best Cure, by Donna Jackson Nakasawa

Here's a bit about the book:

One day Donna Jackson Nakazawa found herself lying on the floor to recover from climbing the stairs. That’s when it hit her. She was managing the symptoms of the autoimmune disorders that had plagued her for a decade, but she had lost her joy. For years, she’d been living on what she’d come to think of as the “Pain Channel.” She wanted to tune into the “Life Channel” instead. As a wife and mother of two, she was determined to get her life back. As a science journalist, she was compelled to understand why her brain might be her last best cure.

How To Be A Friend To A Friend Who's Sick, by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Here's praise for her book:

"How to be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick gives us excellent tools and moving experiences to love and nurture the sick and dying.  It urges and enables us to move towards those in need rather than fleeing in terror or despair.  it is a handbook of kindness and care and will help patients and healers, which is ultimately all of us."
-- Eve Ensler, playwright and activist

Book Recommendation: In the Kingdom of the Sick by Laurie Edwards

I think you will get a lot from reading Laurie's book -- as I did.  Here's a quote about the book:

"...People with chronic illness owe much to advances in medical technology, but they also are aware both of the limits of science and of society's throwback belief--subtle or blatant--that people who are sick have weaker character than those who are well. Through research and patient narratives, Edwards looks at the origins of these attitudes, and from the advent of modern vaccinations through present day, she traces the experience of being a patient with chronic illness through such cultural influences as the disability rights movement, the women's health movement, and the rise of the Internet and health 2.0 technologies..."

Critics call In the Kingdom of the Sick "surprising, revealing, and beautifully written," and a "probing, clear-thinking examination of the new medical crisis on our hands: chronic illness."

When Patient Becomes Caregiver

This is what I feel like shouting:

"Hey world, and all those omnipotent beings who flick the switches, I'm the one who is supposed to be the patient in this version of life.  You slammed me 12 years ago with a chronic pain condition and I've put in all this time coping, seeking, hoping, losing, and gaining.

I count on Richard to be well.  More than well -- to be strong and filter the world for me and do the grocery shopping.  Now you go and slam him with open heart surgery and valve replacement.  Jeez.  Couldn't you have started with something smaller - like a torn meniscus.

And, of course, you tricky devil, the stress of this experience is like a match thrown on the gasoline of my pain.  So there he lay in his hospital bed and there I lay, on the couch in the hospital room, curled up with an ice pack, trying to do my best to be attentive.

But I do thank you for making his illness experience such a good one, given the parameters.  He, thank you, is doing great.  Home, now walking, almost pain-free, optimistic, and even able to put dishes into the dishwasher.  HIs doctors are happy, which means we can all be happy.

But I have to drive him places.  And make real dinner and lunch and breakfast meals for him.  Which means I have to go grocery shopping.  Don't get me wrong,  a big part of me is delighted to be able to care for him and give back a bit of what he's done for me over the years.  And it feels great to help him, because I love him and would do anything I could for him.

But jeez, really....open heart surgery."