For Patients and Caregivers
Between Two Kingdoms, by Suleika Jaouad
When she was 22 years old, Suleika Jaouad was diagnosed with a leukemia for which the prognosis was poor. She underwent years of grueling treatment and—spoiler alert!—she survived. But the hardest part of her cancer experience came once the cancer was gone. Being cured, she discovered, is not where the work of healing ends. It is where it begins. The kingdoms of the sick and of the well are not distinct but overlapping, and we all need to learn to live in the in-between place, not striving for some imaginary state of perfect wellness but instead managing whatever body and mind we currently have.
They Can’t Find Anything Wrong!, by David Clarke
At least half of patients presenting with symptoms in primary care have no identifiable organic disease. And yet most doctors have little to no training in considering how non-organic factors, like psychosocial stressors, may be contributing to their patients’ distress, or how such distress may be effectively treated. And yet an increasing body of evidence suggests both that psychosocial factors are a major contributor to physical symptoms, and that effective treatments exist. Gastroenterologist David Clarke has worked with thousands of patients with what he calls “stress illness,” manifesting most often as pain or as GI, respiratory or neurological symptoms, and helped many of them toward healing.
Life After the Diagnosis, by Steven Pantilat
Serious illness is terrible. Cancer, heart failure, chronic lung disease, cirrhosis, kidney failure, dementia, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis—when such an illness strikes, it hits us hard. It can devastate both patients and their loved ones. We may not know where to turn, what questions to ask, what actions to take. And yet we have to move forward. We have to make decisions—critical decisions—on matters we don’t want to face and don’t feel equipped to make. We face a steep, daunting learning curve and don’t know where to start. Life after the Diagnosis tells you where to start and how to proceed.
Driving Miss Norma, by Tim Bauerschmidt and Ramie Liddle
When Tim Bauerschmidt’s 90-year-old mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer, Tim and his wife Ramie offered her two options: she could move to a supported living situation and undergo as much medical treatment as she wanted, or she could join them in their travel trailer and see the country. Norma chose to hit the road. Together Norma, Tim, Ramie, and their standard poodle Ringo embarked on a year-long road trip that Ramie chronicled on Facebook and that ended up being followed by millions of people. Together, they embraced life while figuring out what high-quality palliative and end-of-life care looked like for them as a family.
They’re Your Parents, Too! by Francine Russo
At least twenty million Americans are currently caring for an elderly parent. 91 percent of those say they do not share caregiving responsibilities equally with anyone, and 51 percent say they are doing it alone. And yet 85 percent of caregivers have at least one sibling. Does this sound like a recipe for resentment and guilt? As journalist Francine Russo reports, we expect caring for parents to be difficult, but the difficulty of navigating sibling relationships in the midst of our parents’ decline can take us by surprise. Her book is about the challenges and opportunities inherent in this last developmental transition in the life of our first family.
“We are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same.”