Thursday’s Homework (On Friday)
Henneke, you make an excellent point about muddling the blog by virtue of who I’m writing for, Ellen or her brother Dan. I’m changing the ideal reader to Dan who can recommend to his sister Ellen to that she read the blog for understanding.
OK, so the ideal reader is Dan, so substitute all of the above with Dan, who suggests to Ellen that she read the blog because it describes some of the things that he is going through. I will rewrite it on my own time and hang it above my computer.
And I like your re-jiggering of my blog purpose: “Help people (and their loved ones) who have received a life-altering medical diagnosis to cope with uncertainty, and with the changes to their life and world view.”
Here are my subjects. I was amazed at how easy it was to generate these. And some of them could be a series (see comment at the end).
1. How to keep going if you suffer from limited energy with your disease
2. Don’t feel badly that no one acknowledges your disease (they are trying to spare you)
3. Discovering the plasticity of the brain
4. Survive by fueling your passion to learn
5. Clear out the energy sucking friends in your attic
6. Spend your time how you want to
7. Develop a strategy to develop your right brain
8. If you’ve been on the left (brain), let the right in
9. Don’t have fits of pique – they’re not worth the time
10. What does not make you stronger will make you mellower
11. Forget the bullshit at work, home, anywhere– you don’t have the time
12. But what about smelling the roses? Or why life continues on in its tedious fashion
13. Strengthen you attention and focus
14. Facing adversity with humor and wryness
15. Stop being pissed at others because you think they don’t understand what you’re going through
16. Power through (or not) if fatigue is one of your symptoms
17. Tips on how to cover cognitive faux paux
18. Understand everything your neurologist is telling you
19. How to make others feel at ease with your disease – acknowledge it and move on
20. Improve your balance if your disease has balance symptoms
21. A better balance program
22. Make new connections if you are losing brain functioning
23. How to deal with embarrassing memory problems
24. When you don’t have the energy to exercise (anything is better than nothing)
25. The role art can play in your disease
26. Observing things differently
27. Educating others
28. Navigating the workplace – to keep it a secret or not
29. How much do you tell your supervisors at work
30. Know the law when it comes to requesting reasonable accommodations at work
I envision some of these becoming a series of posts. The whole work and reasonable accommodations (RA) thing could be several posts. Or, I may have an attorney guest write (or interview) about the law on RA.
I could also turn the part about improving balance into a series. I could also get guest writers (or interviews) on this because it can be quite involved.