New Experience: Blogging With an Editor

Last month's guest post  for GeriLynn Baumblatt of Emmi Solutions was a different experience of blogging for me. Her topic for Health Literacy Month was Health Care Transitions and it took a lot of thought to find something in my health experience that qualified as a transition.

After I submitted the idea and we discussed the first draft I felt reassured by working with Geri Lynn to fine tune the post. Usually my husband and I are the only critics.

And I'm wondering, though I only have to ask, about the etiquette of being a guest blogger and whether I can post the blog here too.

Possibly not so I present the link to the post here.   The Title is "Graduating From Patient School: Health Literacy and Care Transitions" and is the story of how the naive patient I was at the before my diagnosis turned into the aware patient I am today.

The graphic she used was apt: How do we turn on the light bulb and change?

It took so many years to make that change - maybe if more information like what we access without a thought now, had been available then, the process would have been faster.

The post was part of a series about Health Literacy and covered many types of transitions. You can see the rest of the stories here.

PS to readers: I love the picture of the girl and the giant pill and am guilty of using it again this week to make a point.

Guest Post From Robin Magee. Evolution of Blogging

Robin McGee and I met at the Patients Canada Conference in 2013. She was brimming with enthusiasm to meet so many other people who were obsessed by health and patient issues to almost the same extent as she is.  I say almost because there aren't many of us who have written a book. 

Robin's book comes out in May and is titled "The Cancer Olympics".  I can't wait to read it.Robin's been blogging a long time in a private space and now she's ready to come out.

Here's Robin's post: You can find her @TCOrobin

Welcome to March Break. I am sure many of you are off skiing or sunning or visiting relatives. I am spending the week in Ottawa with my elderly parents, trying to provide what help I can. My parents still live in the house I grew up in. My mother’s cancer has spread to her lungs and liver now, and inasmuch as possible they hope she can stay in their home. She is tired and often in pain. I am glad I am able to do things for her – today I took her to get her hair done.

One more revision round was required on the book, and the (hopefully) final proof went in today. More errors that I am astonished that I and my professional proofreaders never saw: “latter” instead of “later,” quotes unclosed, punctuation misplaced, a misspelling of the word “tumour.” I am getting nervous that I won’t have it in time for the launches, but the publisher reassures that it should be no problem. Where are my fingernails?

This week I discovered a fascinating research paper about those who maintain illness blogs like this one. (Ressler, P., Bradshaw, S., Gualtieri, L., Kwan Ho Chui, K. Communicating the experience of chronic pain and illness through blogging. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2012, 14, e143. Published online Oct 23, 2012. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3510726/

Using an online survey, the authors collected information from 230 of my counterparts: people who have kept a blog throughout the course of a severe illness journey.

The authors wrote very poignantly about the role of blogs for patients: “In her book, Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness, Charon [16] describes the experience of patients and families as they enter the divide between the sick and the well, a separation that often feels huge and unbridgeable to those navigating a new way of being:

“These divides between the sick and the well are unspeakably wide. Leveraged open by shame, rage, loss, and fear, these chasms can be unbridgeable. And yet, to get better, the patient needs to feel included among those who are not ill. The sick person needs to continue to be, somehow, the self he or she was before illness struck.”

Chronic pain and illness may have an isolating effect on individuals, changing their perceived roles in society and challenging their ability to find meaning in life and their illness. Creating connections between the world of the sick and world of the well can be important in the positive psychosocial functioning of individuals.”

The authors concluded: “Results suggest that blogging about chronic pain and illness may decrease a sense of isolation through the establishment of online connections with others and increases a sense of purpose to help others in similar situations. Respondents reported that initiating and maintaining an illness blog resulted in increased connection with others, decreased isolation, and provided an opportunity to tell their illness story. Blogging promoted accountability (to self and others) and created opportunities for making meaning and gaining insights from the experience of illness, which nurtured a sense of purpose and furthered their understanding of their illness.”

I was interested to see that many of the bloggers became patient advocates – that this is a natural evolution for many besides me. Here are some of the qualitative responses made by my fellow bloggers:

“It started out with just my personal stories and then I started sharing research and attempted to be an advocate.”

“My blog content has changed mostly as I have a desire to spread more awareness and create a message that others will better relate to and understand.”

“I’ve come to terms with being ill, so there’s less ‘oh goodness it’s weird and scary encountering (insert fact of disabled life).’ I’ve become more political. And there’s more stuff without a disability angle.”

“I take more of a patient advocacy stance.”

“First I was helped, now I am helping...a reminder that I am part of the world.”

Recently, I have followed the blog of one of my CRC counterparts: a young mother, only 42, with a six-year-old child. Diagnosed only one month ago, she has metastatic disease in her liver and her lungs, and has just embarked on full-tilt chemotherapy. Reading her posts and the responses of her community is like stepping into the past: the terror, the bravado, the unknown.

Perhaps one day – God willing – I will see her write a post just like this one.

Blogging and Connections

When I started to blog I gradually realized that I had good practical tips learned through being a patient with chronic illness for over thirty years. That's the first reason I blog and share details of my own health on social media.

I jumped in head first

As a patient I had already discovered that the best way to find the in-depth learning I needed was to talk to communities of patients. Sjogren's World helped me to realize I had Sjogren's Syndrome long before I got a diagnosis. I joined a yahoo group of people with shingles who held my hand and supported me with information from their experiences. In another more social group, after ten years we share the good and bad as life goes on. 

On the #MedX Engage/Empower course and Twitter discussion on February 20th, 2014 I heard Gilles Frydman @gfry and Roni Zeiger @rzeiger talk about the way patients form networks of microexperts and "amplify the collective intelligence of the members."

I think that's what we're all trying to do with our blogs. Add another voice to the rivers of patient experience that are starting to grow in strength and power. The current is moving away from the patriarchal hierarchy where health care knowledge is held by a few. 

You never know who your audience is

My life with chronic disease developed in the usual way. I started with pain, depression and feeling that I was weak and unable to fully participate in a normal life. It was not possible for me to have a full life in all of the areas that were important. If I worked full time then social life, career development and even family would suffer due to lack of energy. I proceeded like this for years - my doctor said my RA was well-controlled but obviously the lack of energy affected my life so his version of "control" did not match what I expected.

Love to give directions but hoped for more energy than an inukshuk.

But there were some turning points - when I successfully advocated for treatment change and another when an offhand compliment encouraged and even energized me.

Now I have adapted to the life I have and the results have been unexpected and positive.

The second reason I blog and share on social media is that I benefit too. This statement from the research paper below really makes sense to me.  

Communicating the Experience of Chronic Pain and Illness Through Blogging  by Pamela Katz Ressler, RN, MS, HN-BC,#1 Ylisabyth S Bradshaw, DO, MS,#1,2 Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM,#2 and Kenneth Kwan Ho Chui, PhD, MS/l

"Results suggest that blogging about chronic pain and illness may decrease a sense of isolation through the establishment of online connections with others and increases a sense of purpose to help others in similar situations.
Respondents reported that initiating and maintaining an illness blog resulted in increased connection with others, decreased isolation, and provided an opportunity to tell their illness story. Blogging promoted accountability (to self and others) and created opportunities for making meaning and gaining insights from the experience of illness, which nurtured a sense of purpose and furthered their understanding of their illness."

It's all about the connections. There's no other way possible to connect with such a great group of people involved with and interested in health care at every level.

Connections

This post is part of a blog carnival: "Why do you blog or share through social media about your illness?"

http://restoringqualityoflifeblog.org/2014/03/05/blog-carnival/

Here is a link to a previous post that I called Fruit vs the Blog exploring the question of which is better for your health - eating fruit or blogging? Of course there's no way to compare.

Blogging For Health

What do you think the best health strategy would be?  A bowl of fruit daily, a blog post at regular intervals or a multivitamin?

Some may say that's like comparing apples and computers.

    

Fruit courtesy of DH

From what I have been reading you are well advised to turn on the computer and start blogging if you are looking for a novel yet accepted method of dealing with chronic disease.

Creative outlets are distracting in a good way. When you are creating something it is a huge distraction from pain or unpleasant circumstances.  That's why we see people with hand problems adapting in many ways to keep from losing their creative outlets. 

                                                          garlic clove

                                  cactus & mutant bunny all knitted by Cat Beattie

The act of writing a blog is a creative work also. I read at The Seated View last week that Lene researched writing before she started her book and found two things essential to success as a writer. It was the second essential where she cited Dorothy Parker and Stephen King  that made me remember her post and look back as I was struggling with this one. To see the essentials have a look at her post here. 

One thing I have always appreciated in Stephen King is his ability to use details of music, books and surroundings to set his work in a specific time or place.  This is a quality you find in many blogs of all types, not just health blogs.  Here's my idea of a shelf of interesting books. You can see why advice from King might resonate with me.

I was advised to keep a journal as a method of improving my health in a self management course and was very skeptical of the value.  Now I am coming to realize that a blog is a lot like journaling and I can see benefits to continuing to do this. 

This is a quote from the Health Mentor program that I mentioned in this post. "Personal reflection has long been recognized as an important learning tool, where new ideas and concepts can become integrated into future critical thinking and practice." It is a learning tool for others as well as for the blogger, so blogging makes you feel good about sharing hard learned information.

                                         Rosetta Stone

If you are a person who likes to help others or is accustomed to being in what I think of as a "helper profession" it can be very satisfying to share your knowledge. Julia's past career as a nurse helps her to do a great job now at  Reasonably Well in sharing information about Sjogren's Syndrome and other "fun" issues like bursitis.  She's the only person I know who ever made cookies for her infusion nurses - Mousie cookies.

                                    Julia's mousie cookies

And here are some conclusions of a paper by Pamela Ressler, Y. Bradshaw, K. Kwan and Lisa Gualtieri. The data was gathered by online questionnaire and they say it warrants further study but it makes sense to me.

Communicating the Experience of Chronic Pain and Illness Through Blogging

"Results suggest that blogging about chronic pain and illness may decrease a sense of isolation through the establishment of online connections with others and increases a sense of purpose to help others in similar situations.
Respondents reported that initiating and maintaining an illness blog resulted in increased connection with others, decreased isolation, and provided an opportunity to tell their illness story. Blogging promoted accountability (to self and others) and created opportunities for making meaning and gaining insights from the experience of illness, which nurtured a sense of purpose and furthered their understanding of their illness."

Volunteering With Chronic Illness

Many people diagnosed with a chronic disease become very knowledgeable about their health problems.  Some like Kelly Young turn their expertise and skills into a world-wide platform.  I read that 10% of people with Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease in the US are members of  RA Warrior    We all appreciate her advocacy and her awareness efforts with doctors and with government.

                                                                             Kelly Young


Another example of people with RA helping others is the project initiated with RA Guy's call for pictures of hands that resulted in the Show Us Your Hands project, which turned into an international movement to raise awareness of inflammatory arthritis.  The team that worked on this went on to produce a poster and a book for sale as a fundraiser.  What a successful project that is!!

Show Us Your Hands

Many others contribute through blogging and by providing on line support for their peers on Twitter, Facebook and online groups. Of course those in clinical trials also make a very concrete difference. There is a real spirit of teamwork in the chronic illness community.

                                                                  Teamwork

Aside from the online opportunities there are some programs that it's possible to participate in in real life if you are lucky enough to be close to a center that supports them. 

There's a very colourful patient I recently met who is most enthusiastic about the Health Mentor Program which I also take part in.  Health Mentors are defined as people living with chronic health challenges.  They meet and interact with groups of students in various health disciplines such as nursing,occupational therapy, MD, social work, physiotherapy and pharmacy.

In the groups the students explore the impact of a health challenge, collaborative assessments,ethics and professionalism, and patient and client safety.  I can't speak from a student point of view but as the person with chronic illness I find it very interesting to meet students who are on their way to achieving a goal that takes a lot of work and dedication.

The program is run by Sylvia Langlois who is Assistant Professor, Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of Toronto

The member I mentioned has asked patient participants to blog on his website.  He calls himself and his site Patient Commando so I expected to meet a man wearing camo and boots.  But no, he's one of us - a person living with chronic illness who is trying to do something about it and who has encouraged like minded people along the way.

                                   Zal Press Patient Commando
You've got to agree that this is a man who gets noticed.  Patient Commando creates social impact by providing platforms that amplify the patient voice.  Here's a  link to their site with 3 patient stories about the Health Mentor Program.

And here's a bonus link to a quiz that can help you to determine what kind of a volunteer you are:  http://www.getinvolved.ca/vquiz/english/   from The Arthritis Society