5/17/06

HOST_Carolann: Welcome again everyone! And a special welcome to Dr. Jeffrey Boyd who is our guest speaker for today.
HOST_Carolann: He is talking about Being Sick Well - Joyful Living Despite Chronic Illness.
HOST_Carolann: Dr. Jeffrey Boyd's passion is for wellness of the whole person. He has written numerous articles and several books, such as Being Sick Well: Joyful Living Despite Chronic Illness.
infinite_8: This will be such an excellent and needed topic and good speaker, so glad you have decided to stay,, We all need this so ( Well I certainly do)
HOST_Carolann: Dr. Boyd has prepared a handout, to get it go to www.restministries.org/CHAT/handout_boyd.pdf
HOST_Carolann: Welcome Dr. Boyd, and I will turn our time over to you.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Thanks. It's an honor to be here. What a fabulous website you host.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: I have a website that is not nearly as good as yours, but has a few ideas: www.beingsickwell.com
Laura: I went to it yesterday, it is very good as well
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: I am a physician and ordained clergyman. I learned a lot about chronic illness, not from medical school, but from personal experience
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: My wife Pat had diabetes, 2 heart attacks, 2 strokes, went blind, kidneys failed, dialysis, legs amputated, died at age 50, it was decades in the trenches of a long war.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Also I myself have suffered from major depression -- lots of antidepressants meds over the years. But the best medicine I ever found was interviewing people referred to me because they remained upbeat despite chronic illness
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: You all know in your heart that psychiatrists are all nuts. What distinguishes me is that I admit it up front.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: After Pat died I realized that at times we were happy. I tried to figure out why & came up with 3 reasons:
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: first, was our faith. We went to church a lot, prayer and congregation helped. God was on our side
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Second was that Felicity, our daughter was Pat's top priority. Pat was willing to go through anything providing F was ok, and she was... turned out well.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Third is that the illness was sometimes quiet for as long as 6 months. I found that God gives us so many blessings that when we've lost 90%, life is still bountiful with blessings and delicious
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: After Pat died I set about to find how other people had remained upbeat despite chronic illnesses. A subject not taught in medical school. I asked friends to refer to me anyone like that and wrote down their stories in a book.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: The books and website are arranged around strategies that the reader can learn from these heroic people, about how to improve lifestyle.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: I wrote of 20 such strategies. But here I'll only focus on the three biggest:
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: 1. Family & friends (social supports)
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: 2. Spirituality (faith, religion, prayer, God)
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: 3. Humor. Until I interviewed so many sick people who were referred to me because of remaining upbeat, I never realized that sick people could be such a hilarious group!
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Starting with the first: family and friends. Many people found what Pat and I did, that stress is not so important if people rally around and support you. "I couldn't have got through it without my family's support," people say.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: There is however a snag, a flaw in that plan, well known to all of you.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: That is that family and friends don't necessarily stick by you if you get sick. It isn't supposed to happen in America today that there should be such suffering
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: People say to sick people, "Why don't you lighten up, leave the house, come out and enjoy yourself?"
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: When you have a chronic illness you have a deck of wild cards vis-a-vis future plans. You don't know if next Tuesday you can have lunch with a friend or whether you'll be too nauseous or depleted to get out of bed
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Women who become disabled often find their husbands unfaithful, or abandoning them. Men who get sick are more likely to have a faithful wife.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Sometimes the other people are a bigger problem than the illness.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: So when others prove to be fools, how do you learn to suffer fools lightly?
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Sometimes an unfaithful husband could be replaced by a faithful and affectionate pet ... like my dog has unconditional love for me.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Anyway, if you have family and friends, it makes illness much more tolerable.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: A second big strategy is faith. In the bedside table of many sick people is the Psalms and Gospels.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: For example, Psalm 13 is written by people like us, starting out scolding God for not paying attention to how hard our life is.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: But by the end of the Psalm the person is feeling better -- aware that God is supportive. Our faith helped Pat and I get through some very hard times.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: The third of the Big Three strategies that I found by interviewing sick people was humor, which surprised me.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: You have to be trained to know what you are looking for, because this "humor" often doesn't sound funny to outsiders.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: It sounds "sick."
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: It is a sarcastic, dark, ironic humor, almost a gallows humor. It is like the humor of soldiers on the battlefield, like Catch 22, the theme of which is "War is absurd! Preposterous!"
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Since this unusual form of humor sounds funny to insiders but not funny to outsiders, it is hard to find illustrations that are funny.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: But I found a few.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: There is a man named Lewis Gizzard, a journalist who lived in Atlanta. He was born with a bad heart, and had terrible heart trouble all his life.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: He wrote a book, "I took a Lickin but Kept on Tickin," which is a little bit funny, I think. It gets our toe dipped into the water of humor.
HOST_Carolann: that's a catchy title!
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Then he got sicker and wrote, "Elvis Is Dead, and I Don't Feel So Good Myself!"
grace: oh my
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Then he had a heart transplant. He wrote, "They Tore My Heart Out of My Chest and Stomped that Sucker Flat!"
infinite_8: You have me laughing....it is cute... I like their thoughts,,,
Laura: We always say. if I don't' laugh, I will cry. so much better to laugh
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Then another sick person told me about the future of medicine .... again illustrating the ironic humor peculiar to sick people.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: What will medicine be like in 20 years? We read about medical breakthroughs every day.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: We've mapped the genome. If we could only solve the ethical problems, it seems that stem cell research offers replacement parts.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: So what will medicine be like in 20 years? Can you imagine? So here's the answer:
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: In 20 years if you have a bad leg that needs to be amputated .....
infinite_8: I would be a robot...lol replacing all.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: .... your managed care company will mail you a carpenter's saw and a book by Captain Ahab "How to Amputate Your Own Leg."
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Then you'll invite your friend to come to your kitchen to saw off your leg.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: So then you're standing on crutches on one leg wondering, "What now?"
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Then your managed care company will mail you a booklet on "Accelerated Rehab"
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: .... and a wooden peg leg, and ...
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: some duct tape
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: And there you have it, folks, an image of the future of medicine.
HOST_Carolann: sounds very do it yourself!
infinite_8: some cannot follow instructions, to fix things ( like me) in trouble now...
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: One audience to whom I told this said, "Why do you say this is the future, Dr. Boyd ... This is how medicine is now."
Laura: Funny but not far from the truth of how you're just another number
HOST_Carolann: the way health care can be sometimes, it's not hard to imagine!
infinite_8: You find yourself,, SEARCHING for the answers yourself,,
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Here's another story that some sick people told me to illustrate the gallows humor of those with chronic illnesses
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: A man has trouble with his memory. So he and his wife go to the doctor.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: The doctor says, "You have to write everything down." "Use paper and pencil to fill in the deficits in your memory."
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: So a month later the couple are sitting in their living room watching TV.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: And he says, "I'm going to the kitchen to get some ice cream. Do you want any?
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: His wife says, "Yes, but I want mine with chocolate syrup. But you'd better write that down. You're going to forget it.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: He says, "I'm not writing it down and I'm not going to forget it!"
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: The wife says, "Dr. So-and-so says you need to write everything down."
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: He says, "I'm not going to forget it." So he totters off to the kitchen.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: He's in the kitchen 45 minutes.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: He comes back with a plate of bacon and eggs.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: His wife says, "you see, I told you you should write it down! ......
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: ..... "You forgot the toast!"
Bob_m: lots of laughs!
infinite_8: I have notes on table myself, ( one to even come to chat) isn't that awful, and to make beans... So this is funny,, but I understand it!! hahahhaLaura: cute
HOST_Carolann: I do that too infinte8 - paper everywhere
infinite_8: It is funny.. ( just need to remember to check papers)
grace: is that life fibro fog?
infinite_8: I hope Fibro Fog, I am only 55 yrs old,,,,,
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: So I've been chattering away for more than the allotted 20 minutes. Does anyone have any examples of this kind of humor?
HOST_Carolann: I heard someone today say we need to look around us for things that are humorous - they are there if we look for it
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: That's like most humor of sick people, it is hilarious in the family and among close friends. Outsiders usually don't get it.
HOST_Carolann: that is so true - people are kind of serious when you make light of your illness
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Like I told a friend of mine, a cardiologist, about this humor. He was astounded. He said that for 30 years people had been telling him things like this, and he never realized that it was humor!
HOST_Carolann: problem with my memory is I can't remember jokes!
kp: You know you've got fibro-fog when you've poured the milk in to the bin and washed the tea-bag
HOST_Carolann: hehehe kp that's good!
infinite_8: Me either Carolann, but never could,, so think it might be,,,ok..
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: When I start listening for this kind of humor, I hear it often. A woman with very painful legs and exhaustion tells me her illness goes by the diagnosis "Fufenschnaffle." This name makes her laugh and that keeps her from crying.
HOST_Carolann: hehehe that's a funny name
Margie: I have balance disorder...I always joke that if it were not for the walls in my house to stop me, I might have staggered into Europe by now!!
HOST_Carolann: hehehe,
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Another woman with a colostomy calls her opening "Charlie." That humanizes it. Every morning she says, "We're going to behave ourselves today, aren't we Charlie?"
Margie: Gee, I just prevented a possible vacation!!!!!
HOST_Carolann: hehehe, now that is a good example of dark humour
Laura: Do any of you watch House? About five doctors solve the mystery of why a person is sick and go through many wrong diagnoses until they come up with the cure. I jokingly say to my husband, can you find me a doctor like that?
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: House is an excellent example of the dark gallows humor I'm talking about.
infinite_8: cute,, My Mom used to say she was a Kenodrum ( something like that ) the Dr said, if there is anything odd to get you will get it)
infinite_8: The Dr gave her the name...she thought it was cute.
HOST_Carolann: I think it's spelled conundrum - means like a puzzle
infinite_8: That is it,, Carolann ( wow there is such a word,, we thought he made it up)
HOST_Carolann: it's in the dictionary
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: There was once a book that was very, very popular with physicians, called "House of God." It was about being an Intern (MD in training) in a teaching hospital in Boston. It is loaded with this dark humor.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: A friend of mine, Lawrence Silverman, is a Rabbi and says that over 30 years he's noticed a beneficial effect of humor among his congregation.
HOST_Carolann: it's hard to be humorous when you don't have anyone to share it with
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: When someone has cancer or some dreadful illness, it makes a big difference whether you continue to have a sense of humor or not.
Margie: It amazes me how few people have a wry sense of humor - I joke and it goes right over their head.
HOST_Carolann: it's a special gift Margie
infinite_8: true,, and if you should talk to yourself ( people will think you have money in the bank)
grace: the Bible says, A merry heart does good like a medicine
HOST_Carolann: amen grace
Laura: My husband and I laugh way more when we have company. It helps so much just to talk about other things in life and to lighten up
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: I'll come back to Lawrence Silverman. When working on this talk today I realized that social isolation is such a problem for sick people, which is one of the main reasons that this website is so wonderful, providing a way to share. Sometimes prayer groups do that also.
HOST_Carolann: yes for sure Dr. Boyd
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Going back to my friend Lawrence Silverman, the Rabbi found that when people still have a sense of humor, they preserve their friendships and quality of social network much better than if they have no sense of humor. they don't necessarily live longer, but they live richer.
infinite_8: Actually at work I laughed alot,,, ( although work was too hard, but my friends ,, the staff,,, and directors and pt's thought I was a joke in the adult home,, as activities director, could keep them laughing ,but went home crying in pain.. So when I had to go on disability that was the thing I do miss. But do not feel much like going anywhere, truly now.)
Laura: When people ask for me what they can do, I say please come visit. I share that I am lonely but most everyone seems to busy
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Humor allows you to solve an otherwise insoluble problem. If you and I get together and I have chronic pain (or some other condition)do we talk about my pain or not? Either way it is awkward.
HOST_Carolann: it's hard to know - some people want to and other don't
kp: Because I've always worked with children ... I find that I have a 'young' sense of humour which I have been able to maintain .... even through the pain and discomfort
infinite_8: So chat is best for me, and my family and church, and this is wonderful, and we all help one another, and this to me is so important.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: If we talk about my pain, that's depressing. Often things are better not talked about. Besides, it gets OLD fast to talk about it. What more can be said? If we don't talk about it that seems rude and unnatural.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Humor allows us to solve that dilemma.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: It allows us to allude to the pain problem, without getting bogged down in it.
infinite_8: If I talk about my pain I am ignored, as I LOOK ok)
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: So humor is a social lubricant.
grace: yes I see
HOST_Carolann: it certainly eases tension sometimes
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: It can be dreadful to talk about pain and find people ignoring you. It is very devaluing.
HOST_Carolann: but it has to be used tactfully too I think
infinite_8: Yes it is,, they do not understand till we go through things I guess.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: This is part of the social problem of those with illness, the problem of how to exist with a condition which American culture says doesn't exist, or will soon be solved.
HOST_Carolann: exactly infinite8
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: This is much of why the humor of sick people tends to be so sarcastic.
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: In Uncle Remus the slaves mocked the slave holders. Today sick people mock their unsympathetic neighbors, doctors, managed care companies.
infinite_8: Now I know how to be caregiver and wone being helped, I guess ( well back surgery) made me need help alot, and boy hard to be the one needing help,, harder then being care giver)
Margie: Thankfully, my hubby and daughter share my humor - we can laugh til we cry... One time a neighbor called to inquire about what all the noise was about.!!! (the windows were open!)
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: In "Catch 22" the book mocks the absurdity of war. Today sick people and their families use humor to mock the absurdity of the battlefield of health.
HOST_Carolann: that's neat Margie - you are blessed to have that around you
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: I've not previously participated in such a discussion as this, but it a rich and exciting dialog.
HOST_Carolann: I think when we stop laughing we shrivel up inside
HOST_Carolann: I'm glad you are enjoying your time Dr. Boyd. Our hour is just about up, so if you have any final comments. Where can people find your book?
reni: if we can't laugh we become bitter
Laura: My very good friend said the first time she saw me she thought to herself that I was way too pretty to be in a wheel chair. when she later shared this with me I said to her" So what, if I was ugly that would make it o.k?" We both laughed !
infinite_8: Dr Boyd you have gone through,,,, so VERY much,,,,, you are really such a blessing,, and it could not have been easy at all for you or Pat..
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Like one of the things I learned from writing my book "Being Sick Well" and website BeingSickWell.com, is that if you stop to listen to sick people there is a lot of wisdom that no one else is listening to.
Alice: I tell my HopeKeepers support group that laughter is like "inner jogging!" I think I shared this last week.
HOST_Carolann: amen Dr. Boyd - good point
HOST_Carolann: yes I remember that Alice - I like that phrase
liz4cps: I have my "you know you're tired when" jokes: You know you're tired when you fall asleep in the middle of drinking a cup of coffee -- and it's your third cup of coffee!
HOST_Carolann: heheheh liz that's hilarious
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Isn't it wonderful that the internet allows something like a HopeKeepers Support Group to come into the house of those who are stuck at home?
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: In some ways prayer groups help in a similar way, to allow those stuck at home to be in touch with and helpful to a wider circle of people with similar problems and similar beliefs.
HOST_Carolann: yes for sure
Laura: Amen!
reni: thank u for sharing blessings
HOST_Carolann: Thank you so much Dr. Boyd for coming today and sharing with us
HOST_Carolann: it's been great and thank you all for your input and participation
Laura: Keep smiling
infinite_8: Oh dear,, must go,, grandchildren here, age 5 and 8 and expect a TEA party today,, ( after school for two hrs) Bless you DR Boyd and Thank you, and Carolann and Deb and blessings to all,, Will be looking at your site again, Dr Boyd,
HOST_Carolann: you're welcome
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Like there is something called the "Locked in syndrome" Someone can have a stroke such that they are unable to communicate at all except by blinking their eyes. Such a person can feel very isolated. A minister went to such a person in a Rehabilitation Hospital and asked for help in praying for other sick people. This gave the "Locked in" person a sense of purpose, and enormously buoyed her spirits.
HOST_Carolann: how wonderful - what a great example to all of us!
Laura: Having a purpose is so important.
Alice: No matter what our circumstances, God can and will use us if we let Him.
HOST_Carolann: what an inspiration that no matter we can all do something
GUEST_Dr_Boyd: Thank you for inviting me to this exciting chat room. It is a great honor. I'll carefully review everything that has been said, looking for pearls to share with others in the future.
HOST_Carolann: thank you SO much Dr. Boyd - I'll send you a transcript
Laura: Bye, and thanks for this time of refreshment