Living with someone with emphysema

[Guest guest]

Dear Violet,

I'm so sorry that you not only have to cope with your

candida but also with your husband's emphysema. I know

that must be hard.

My father smoked two packs of unfiltered Camels all of

his life, and as a child I just sort of got used to

him being in the hospital for a few weeks every winter

with pneumonia. Eventually it killed him.

Is your husband in any kind of a support group for his

illness? Although, as the old saying goes, " you can

lead a horse, but you can't make him drink, " sometimes

having a skilled support of that kind can be

enormously helpful, for botht the patient and their

loved ones.

Also, and I know you already know this, each one of us

must ultimately take responsability for our own

behavior, and it isn't fair that you or other family

members feel pressured into not doing things because

he isn't able to participte. While he might feel left

out, he has, in essence, left himself out.

Forgive me for going on like this, but before moving

into the business world I worked in psychology. :-) I

leave you, below, with info on a really wonderful book

on pain and chronic illness, written by the founder of

the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of

Massachusetts Medical Center. It is well worth the

read for any of us that are dealing with health

challences, and it is my hope that it will be of help

to someone.

Muchos saludos,

Jeanne OTS

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body

and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon

Kabat-Zinn

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at

the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, is

perhaps the best-known proponent of using meditation

to help patients deal with illness. (The somewhat

confusing title is from a line in Zorba the Greek in

which the title character refers to the ups and downs

of family life as " the full catastrophe. " ) But this

book is also a terrific introduction for anyone who

has considered meditating but was afraid it would be

too difficult or would include religious practices

they found foreign. Kabat-Zinn focuses on

" mindfulness, " a concept that involves living in the

moment, paying attention, and simply " being " rather

than " doing. " While you can practice anything

" mindfully, " from taking a walk to cleaning your

house, Kabat-Zinn presents several meditation

techniques that focus the attention most clearly,

whether it's on a simple phrase, your breathing, or

various parts of your body. The book goes into detail

about how hospital patients have either improved their

health or simply come to feel better despite their

illness by using these techniques, but these

meditations can help anyone deal with stress and gain

a calmer outlook on life. " When we use the word

healing to describe the experiences of people in the

stress clinic, what we mean above all is that they are

undergoing a profound transformation of view, "

Kabat-Zinn writes. " Out of this shift in perspective

comes an ability to act with greater balance and inner

security in the world. " --Ben Kallen

From Publishers Weekly

Kabat-Zinn is founder and director of the stress

reduction program at the University of Massachusetts

Medical Center, and the " full catastrophe " of which he

writes is the spectrum of stress in life. His program,

in a word, is meditation, rescued from the mire of

mysticism that made it trendy in the 1960s. The author

focuses on the advantages of employing " practiced

mindfulness " to control and calm our responses without

blunting our feelings--and a more convincing

introduction to the many modes and uses of meditation

could hardly be imagined. In personable, enlightening

prose, Kabat-Zinn first explains how to develop a

meditation schedule, and in later chapters

pragmatically applies his plan to the main sources of

stress. An impressive middle section clearly marshals

scientific and anecdotal evidence relating state of

mind to state of health. And while emphasizing

meditation's healing potential, Kabat-Zinn makes no

sweeping claims, suggesting that the discipline serve

not as means but end.

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