Wendy Harpham on Healthy Survivorship

Difficulty of Reporting Minor Symptoms

After someone has been through cancer treatment and recovery, a new mild symptom is no big deal, right?  Well, maybe. In the next few posts, we'll explore the difficulty of reporting minor symptoms in long-term survivors (LTS) who want to be Healthy Survivors.

The Dilemma of Hoping to be an Exceptional Responder

To be an exceptional responder, you must maintain hope that treatment will work for you, even if it rarely works in patients like you.  My concern about success stories like mine and Ella Remmings' is that some people draw the wrong conclusion from stories of exceptional responders. 

How We Die: Love and Dementia

Writers choose words and phrases with care. In all my years of writing, only once or twice have I repeated a sentence word-for-word in a single essay. So when surgeon Nuland did so in How We Die, I took notice.

How We Die: Discriminate Specialization

In my last post I share my discomfort with a passage from How We Die. Reading on, however, Nuland offers a useful insight about a risk of increasing specialization:

How We Die: Natural Law

Dr. Nuland opens Chapter 2 of How We Die saying, "No one dies of old age, or so it would be legislated if actuaries ruled the world."  Later in the chapter he introduces a perspective on aging that can serve Healthy Survivors well.

What a Difference a Letter Can Make

When young parents are dying, they face the loss of everything they know and hold dear. Arguably their greatest pain is losing the chance to raise their child(ren). To help such parents find hope in desperate times, I offer a suggestion:

To Survive with Cancer

James C. Salwitz, MD doesn't use the term Healthy Survivor. Still, the story he tells offers a name and face to the idea that patients in difficult circumstances can find Happiness in a Storm.

Grief and Acceptance - Part V (Promoting Acceptance)

The preceding four posts on grief and acceptance set the stage for a closer look at how patients can be Healthy Survivors at the end-of-life. In other words, how can you both get good care and live as fully as possible after a diagnosis of terminal disease?