Eldredge You've Gotta Fight Back!

Winning with serious illness, injury, or disability
1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-1-61599-878-4
Verlag: Loving Healing Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

Reihe: Reflections of America

The heart of this book consists of thirteen, riveting, in-depth stories of people who fought back with courage, humor, and a positive attitude. In doing so, they have provided valuable guidance for you, the readers of this inspiring work.

• The seriously ill, their friends and family will gain priceless advice on coping, dealing with depression, how to partner with the medical profession, the tremendous value of self-help groups and the vital importance of attitude.
• Those with disabilities will learn how others have successfully played the hand they were dealt and managed to live successful, fulfilling lives. The disabled and those with serious illnesses can learn from each other. There are no silver bullets buried in these pages, just the sound, useable experience of others.
• Caregivers, be they family, friends, or health professionals will gain great insight from the in-depth stories of survivors, the bereaved, and those who died with grace and even style.

'This book helps sufferers and caregivers alike to make sense of their situation, to avoid the mistakes while copying the successful strategies of these very real people.'
--Bob Rich, PhD, author of Cancer: A Personal Challenge
'Far from a mere theoretical discourse and despite its potentially morbid topic, it brims with life: real cases, real people, real triumphs over a variety of illnesses and the distress they cause. A treasure trove of celebrated stories of survival and passages from the memoirs of those who made it.' --Sam Vaknin, PhD, author of Malignant Self Love

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eldredge, Dirk Chase

Leseproben

1	Attitude Is Everything

The more I think about it, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, or say, or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you…. We are in charge of our attitudes.

—Charles Swindoll

“[L]ife is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it.” That sentence resonates as clearly with the tuning fork of truth as any in the English language. Nowhere is its thrust more important than in coping with physical setbacks.

As the above essay asserts: “The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.” This reminds us that the mind, not some external force, is the wellspring of attitude.

The following personal profile tells of a couple and their battle with a disease that some see as a living hell. This couple see it as part of the pith and marrow of life.

Another Iron Horse

Edward J. McNeill

Baseball's Lou Gehrig was known as the Iron Horse. He played in over 2,000 consecutive New York Yankees’ games, a string spanning fourteen seasons, a durability record that stood for fifty years. In 1939 a devastating disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, (ALS) broke his string. Gehrig died two years later. Today, reflecting his fame, the affliction is commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease.

While it now has a colorful name, the cause of the disease is unknown, and it remains incurable.

Over ninety percent of its victims die in less than five years, some in less than two. According to the University of California at San Francisco ALS Center, the disease is more common than generally perceived. There are 5,600 new cases in the US each year; sixty percent are men, mostly between age forty and seventy. About one in 1,000 Americans will be stricken by the disease.

Orange County, California's Edward J. McNeill should be known as the Iron Horse of ALS. He and his usually healthy, vivacious wife, Charlotte, have coped with his ALS for more than 30 years, and in spite of some profound setbacks are still going strong.

When asked how he has been able to live with the disease for so long, Ed pugnaciously replied: “I don't live with it. It has to live with me, and I feel sorry for it.”

John Milton wrote: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven.” While they lived in different centuries, Milton would certainly have applauded Ed's attitude.

Diagnosed in 1979, Ed was a key executive with an international trade association. He is intelligent and well educated with a BA and an MBA. A former Marine Corps company commander, he saw only good things coming his way until this dire turn of events.

His first noticeable symptom was slurred speech. Some co-workers misinterpreted this as over-imbibing at lunch. Some even thought he came to work drunk. It got very ugly, very fast, culminating in a closed-door board of directors meeting, excluding Ed.

A timely but shocking diagnosis soon lowered these raised eyebrows. After some initial uncertainty, all four doctors they consulted rendered the same opinion: Ed had ALS and only a few years to live.

His employer responded very generously to his situation, keeping him working as long as possible and extending his benefits for life. Even so, drastic changes awaited Ed, Charlotte and their three daughters, ages fourteen, twelve, and eight.

Perhaps delayed by denial, perhaps by timidity, he and Charlotte had not shared all the facts of his devastating disease with the girls. Trying to learn all he could about ALS, Ed had ordered a booklet from the government printing office. Unfortunately their twelve- year-old middle child, Maura, found it in the mail. A voracious reader, she inhaled it before Ed and Charlotte even realized it was in the house. It described the disease in all its gruesome details, including the prognosis of a short life expectancy. This shock proved the beginning of a long downward spiral for Maura. Their other two daughters, Erin and Nanci, took the shock more or less in stride, but not Maura.

The family trimmed its sails during the early 1980s. Within three years after diagnosis, Ed was no longer able to work because of his loss of motor and speech skills. Charlotte took on the dual roles of breadwinner and caretaker with mixed results.

It soon became clear that, in the long run, staying in New Jersey was not in the cards for the McNeills. The winters are harsh and expensive. Ed suffered during extremes of both heat and cold. Property taxes on their large family home were high and going higher, and it was a three-story house, all wrong for Ed's compromised mobility. Financially they would have to either refinance or sell the family home anyway. They both knew the financial road ahead would be rough, and they would need to tap into some of that equity to make it.

Anticipating she would soon be the sole supporter of Ed and their three children, Charlotte decided to finish getting her long-deferred degree to add to her value in the workplace. She graduated with her BA in business administration three years after Ed's diagnosis.

Ed Proves Unique

Surprisingly, Ed's symptoms developed much slower than the typical ALS patient's. Statistically, he should have been dead by the time Charlotte graduated. The reasons for his delayed decline are bound up in biology's tangled lottery. Perhaps it resulted from the strict vegetarian diet Charlotte adopted soon after diagnosis. Perhaps the daily dose of folic acid, amino acids, or the acupuncture did it. They tried so many things, no one knows for sure what helped and what didn't. For sure, Ed was deteriorating slower than predicted, and to this day no one knows why. After three years he still looked healthy and could get around reasonably well; first with a cane, then a walker. His slow-motion decline was a blessing in many ways, but would cast the pall of uncertainty over Ed and Charlotte's lives for the rest of his days.

To occupy his time and turn his considerable mental energies away from his disease and toward something constructive, Ed took on the task of researching colleges for the two older girls and helping them apply for admission and financial aid. There were brochures to send for, catalogs to digest, entrance requirements to determine, applications to submit, discussions to conduct and decisions to be made. The discussion part was tough for Ed. He had lost his voice to ALS, but he was able to bring his intellect to bear on the issues by typing out his thoughts with one finger on his recently acquired personal computer.

Erin, the eldest, did well in high school and had many choices to investigate. In 1984 she went off to the University of Pennsylvania on a full R.O.T.C. scholarship. Her hard work and Ed's research and guidance had paid off.

The Troubled Middle Child

Maura struggled in high school and figuratively dropped out. Ed and Charlotte were mystified, but, truth be told, Maura had become involved with alcohol and was experimenting with drugs. Said Charlotte: “We were so absorbed in coping with Ed's problem and how we were going to make ends meet, we forgot the kids had needs too.”

Charlotte took Maura for biofeedback treatments for headaches, that in retrospect she suspects were hangovers. She tells of making an appointment for herself and Maura to see a psychiatrist. Maura didn't show up in time so Charlotte went by herself and spent the entire hour tearfully telling the story. Deeply moved, the psychiatrist never billed them for the session. They also went for family counseling sessions, that ended with the counselor suggesting there might be alcohol involved, but Ed and Charlotte insisted otherwise.

Later, Charlotte discovered two marijuana plants in Maura's room, and in an angry confrontation threw them out the window. In full-on rebellion, Maura dashed barefoot into the snow to retrieve and hide them.

In 1985 Maura graduated from high school. In spite of her behavioral difficulties, she had high SAT scores and an excellent application essay, so the University of Colorado granted her conditional admission. With serious reservations, but few realistic options, the family saw her off to Boulder. After a successful summer school session, she gained full admission. With Ed's handicap and their youngest daughter, Nanci, still at home, Maura's problems receded to the back burner.

Heading West

With two girls out of the nest, Ed and Charlotte began thinking seriously about moving. Nanci, who had never known another home and was about to enter high school, was understandably cool to the idea. But the family's circumstances demanded a moderate climate and a less expensive...