Ta-Da! Improve Your Doctor's Visits With This

We’re really excited to announce that we’ve posted our FREE Patient Loving Care Doctor’s Memo for you to download. The PLC Doctor’s Memo includes detailed instructions on how to collect your thoughts for your next doctor’s visit and put them down on paper. It will help you to think through exactly what you want to ask, describe how you’ve been feeling and determine next steps in your care. There’s advice on how to word your thoughts clearly and how to present them in the most efficient way so you get the most out of your time in the exam room.

There’s a blank memo you can use as a template, so you can fill out a new memo each time you visit the doctor and also save it on your computer for reference. A sample memo gives you an idea how it’s meant to be used. And the instructions will walk you through each step.

So let’s get started! Click here to get your own copy of the Patient Loving Care Doctor’s Memo.

And let us know what you think! Leave a comment. Give a suggestion. Most of all, put the memo into practice and let us know how it works out.

Diagnosis: a Scott Hamilton Obsession

Flipping channels the other night, I stopped to catch a few minutes of figure skater Scott Hamilton’s special on Biography, and I was quickly sucked in for the whole two-hour show. What a charming guy. And what a story teller.

Hamilton framed his whole career through the lens of medical adversity and, although at times the schmaltz factor was way off the charts, his message about perseverance hit home in this house. I liked the vibe of genuineness – they filmed him wheeling his own bags through the airport, for pete’s sake. And I liked his honest assessment of failure – no slick and slo-mo, worship-at-my-altar shots like you see over on ESPN. Instead, he spoke to the camera about how his success never would have happened if he didn’t fall down so much (literally and figuratively). Every time, Hamilton just got up and tried that much harder. The strategy earned him an Olympic gold medal, a lucrative business producing ice shows, and apparently quite a lot of personal happiness.

The whole experience got me thinking about celebrity patients. Lance Armstrong turned his illness into a mega-million-dollar conglomerate to fight cancer. Who could forget Katie Couric’s colon (well, we can try). Christopher Reeve put a face on spinal cord injury and paraplegia.

Despite all the good they do, however, we live in a world where we’re bombarded with causes in favor of this, and against that.
It’s easy to tune out.
And so refreshing to come across one that stands out from the noise.

(Photo: coxnewsweb.com)

The Power of Love

My daily routine would start nearly every day the same way:on the phone with my best friend who happens to live more than 450 miles away. We would talk when we dropped off our kids to school and were on our way to work. We would talk about our rebellious children, our husbands, our reports from the kids' schools and our daily trials and tribulations. Looking back, the kids stomping their feet in anger, the husbands forgetting special days, the smart talk from our kids when we took their video game system away due to their grades was nothing compared to the tragedy that followed.

When Elaine shared with me the medical issues she dealt with one of her children, I immediately went into RN mode. I was torn as to how I could help being so far away. Does she need a nurse that is 450 miles away or does she need a friend to support her and try to guide her in a positive way? I decided that the latter was what she needed and soon found out that I could use my nursing knowledge to guide her in her thirst for knowledge. She is an excellent investigative reporter because she can teach me about neurologic disorders. Her search for information was amazing and mindboggling. Sometimes I just clarified the doctor's role and let her know that she was deserving of more from the doctors. Sometimes it was helping her to see the objective side of things. I know that sharing ideas and thoughts on this level has brought us closer together and I can not imagine either of us going through this without the other.

My own journey on the other side of healthcare-as a caregiver to a loved one-began the day my mother had a heart attack. She was in the emergency room being seen for back pain when I got to the hospital and saw that she was admitted into a room. She was not responding to me. I knew something was very wrong, this was not just back pain. All of a sudden nurses came running in and slapped electrodes on her chest, back and legs. They told me that her bloodwork came back and levels of cardiac enzymes indicated that she was going to have a heart attack. They wheeled her to the Coronary Care Unit with my dad and I almost running with them. We got there and I got to feel the chilling feeling that so many families feel when getting bad news. My mom finally spoke. She yelled out, "I am going to die!" Those words still echo in my head. The cardiologist said, "Lower the head of the bed, we are going to intubate her." The nurse looked at me and said, "Do you want us to intubate her?" I was desperate as I gasped to breathe for my mother and said, "yes." This began a four month process which I did not want to go through. That first night the medical staff told us that her heart was functioning at 10% and if she pulled through she may need a heart transplant. That night was miserable. I felt so helpless to do anything. I hated being on this side of the medical treatment.

The next months were full of ups and downs with her care and response to treatment. She was in three different hospitals and a nursing home for rehabilitation. She experienced good care, negligent care and mediocre care. I was horrified. I debated with doctors about their plans of action, medication choices and ordered tests. I am the coordinator of a nursing assistant program and could not believe the poor level of care that was often delivered at that level. I told some to change their gloves upon entering her room and if it were not for me, she would not have had her teeth brushed at all over those four months.

What do families do when they do not have this basic nursing knowledge? I am committed to help these family caregivers become empowered and demand the care that their loved ones deserve. My mother beat the odds and I feel it is nothing short of a miracle that she has been at home with my dad for the past two and a half years. And no, she did not need a heart transplant. I want all patients to get quality care and have their family members empowered enough to make a difference in their healing to reach their optimal level.

Diane lives east of Cleveland, Ohio with her husband and son. Her and her husband also have a daughter at The Ohio State University. O-H-I-O! Go Buckeyes!

Photo: Diane's mom, Dolly, recovered and celebrating her golden wedding anniversary with her husband Herb.

Who Am I? An Existential Question

It was the journalism degree, of all things, that turned out to be the sturdy dinghy in a mighty storm. When my child was diagnosed with a neurological illness, I went into investigative reporter mode – for years. The research kept at bay the nauseating sense of helplessness. The pointed questions to doctors and school staff kept them honest. And the writing – succinct, on-message sound bites to summarize my objectives for each check-up – improved my child’s care. Today, I firmly believe it played a strong role in bringing his health and functioning to optimal levels.

Strangely enough, the illness in turn softened my crusty reporter’s heart. That adage about “the really important things in life” became solace as any career aspirations I had faded away. A unique capacity for great patience and compassion would have remained untapped had this illness not joined our lives. And I slowly, painfully became adept at the art of optimism, a virtue heartily scorned in the journalism world. There are good doctors, there is the kindness of strangers, there are strong and compassionate friends without whom we would have never weathered the storm.

Next up, meet my best friend who was my rock and salvation as my child and I journeyed as lay people through the medical maze.

Elaine lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband, three children, and her Phillies World Series commemorative earrings.

(Artwork courtesy of wikia.com)

Feeling Like a Lab Rat in a Medical Maze

It's been six-plus years that I've been navigating the medical maze to care for a family member with a chronic illness. Over and over, I've become frustrated that “I don’t know what I don’t know.” Sometimes, my search to fill in those knowledge gaps has resulted in a solution that doctors loved, and they would say “I wish all my patients did this.”

Sometimes, the answer was found with other patients traveling a similar road. The advice came from strangers online who offered up their own experience for no other reason than to ease the path of other children and families dealing with similar issues. The sharing and caring, and swapping of strategies was invaluable.

And then there were the frustrations that were never answered. These were often the bigger issues – health insurance plans, the marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies, the broader question of how our doctors are taught about patient care in medical school.

The creation of this blog comes from a desire to bring all the lessons together. To make it easier for the patient and the caregiver to navigate the medical maze. To support doctors who can knowledgably and accurately treat each individual. To empower ourselves to actively participate in our own physical, spiritual and emotional well being.