How to be Sick - making peace with chronic illness

Powerful Patient, 2010 Week 37

Host: Joyce Graff, http://powerfulpatient.org, editor@vhl.org 800-767-4845

Beginning April 28, 2009 Listen Program guide for this show

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Each day of our lives is spent finding new ways to be well. So what are we supposed to do when, overnight, we find our lives have changed and we are told we may never be well again? When doctors can’t tell us, “You’re going to be ok.” How do we deal with this scenario …when no one ever taught us ‘how to be sick?’ In 2001, Toni Bernhard, a lawyer, professor, wife and mother, was living a busy and fulfilling life until, while on a short, romantic trip to Paris, she contracted a viral infection from which she has yet to recover. After living in despair for much of the first 5-6 years of her illness, Bernhard began to focus on how to live gracefully and purposefully despite her new limitations. Joyce talks with Toni about how she learned to live with chronic illness.