Patients For A Moment: What Advice Would You Give Edition

Welcome to the latest edition of the patient-centered blog carnival, Patients For A Moment. The posts submitted for this edition were based on the following question I posed to readers:

What advice would you give, or what would you want non-chronically ill people to know about your illness and your life?

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These 10 gems of wisdom have taken several different forms, from letter to list, and all provide a great amount of insight into what it means to deal with chronic illness in a world that isn’t always sympathetic or understanding:

Kathy, at Making Noises, provides an honest and heartfelt list about what she would like the people in her life to understand, in the post, Ten Things I Want You To Know.

Selena over at Oh My Aches And Pains! explains the meaning of chronic, suggesting that being chronically ill “is like having a job, except I work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without pay or benefits,” in the post, Selena Writes: A Letter to the Healthy People In My Life.

Maria from My Life Works Today shares a story outside of illness, in which her ability to understand someone else’s situation is questioned. She connects this story to illness, in the post, So Much to Learn - So Little Time. I can’t do adequate justice to the post here, so just read it! Suffice it to say, she’s got moxy!

In the post, What I'd Say, Brittney from The Road I'm On, shares what she would tell her new classmates about her life with chronic illness, if she could sit them all down at once.

Lisa Emrich of Brass and Ivory “thinks aloud” about what she would like non-chronically ill people to know. While she says she doesn’t think about this group often, she shares what having multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis mean for her life, in the post, I am still me.

Novel Patient Lauren emphasizes the importance of finding balance and not trying to “one up” each other when it comes to talking about pain and illness, in the post, Complaining About Complaining. 

Rheumatoid Arthritis Warrior Kelly Young shares one man’s experience learning to deal with the impact of his wife’s RA in the post, Living with a Spouse with Chronic Illness, part 2.

From the blog Chronically Young, Britta takes us through many of her symptoms from Lyme Disease, and wishes that others understood how good they actually have it, in the post, What I'd Say.

In the post Awareness...or something like it!, Shweta of it's no more in my head, talks about the importance of being sensitive to the situations of others.

From the blog, Frank Living Fully, Frank Elliot shares a brief story about others being helpful, in the post, Living With Hope In A Community of Hope.

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I am still in need of hosts for the October 27th, November 10th, and November 24th editions – and all 2011 editions (I know, it’s weird to be thinking ahead to 2011 already). My goal for 2011 is to have each edition hosted by a different person. Please contact me at gettingclosertomyself@gmail.com if you are interested!

And I didn’t get a chance to finish the post I was working on for this edition of PFAM, but check back on my blog next week for the post, “I Love You, Don’t Touch Me”, which touches on several of the issues explored here.

The next edition of PFAM will be hosted by Dear Thyroid on September 8, 2010.

Everyone is doing a great job so far!