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In Sickness As In Health: Helping Couples Cope with the Complexities of Illness

Clinical social worker Dr. Ruth Hoffman-style talk on how illness reshapes couples' relationships, drawn from their book 'In Sickness and in Health'. Covers hope, caregiving and shared coping.

Key Takeaways

  • Illness affects the whole couple, not just the patient, and it can become a 'third partner' that dictates daily life.
  • Illness can reveal and deepen the core of a relationship, though it can also expose irreparable problems.
  • Ill and caregiving partners experience illness differently, and recognizing this difference helps them work as a team.
  • Cultivating hope and shared decision-making are powerful tools for building relationship resilience during illness.

What the video covers

  • The speaker, a clinical social worker and hospice consultant, co-wrote 'In Sickness and in Health' after interviewing many couples living with illness and experts from diverse fields.
  • Illness affects two lives: the ill person's body carries the disease, but both partners' lives, minds and spirits are turned in unexpected directions.
  • The speaker shares personal experience of chronic pain, and mentions co-author Roan's stroke recovery, in which she returned to playing violin within two years.
  • Healing is distinguished from curing; healing can occur in many ways even when a cure is not possible, and support from a partner and pets can be a major source of it.
  • Illness disrupts daily routines and couple rhythms, replacing chores and shared habits with medical appointments, treatments, waiting and side effects.
  • Illness can strip away irrelevancies and reveal the bedrock of a relationship; for most couples this is compassion and love, though some discover their bond is damaged and separate happily.
  • An exercise contrasts how ill and caregiving partners perceive the experience: words like terrified, lost, sadness, anger and fear reveal overlap but also significant differences.
  • Shifts from partner to patient-caregiver roles change the relationship dynamic, and the couple must adapt to dependence and new responsibilities.
  • Hope is presented as a motivating, lightening state that can be cultivated in the present moment, allowing couples to cherish life and deepen love despite sadness.
  • Practical advice includes managing one's own healthcare, making shared decisions with doctors, and using a partner to advocate and remember medical information.

Chapters

  1. 00:00Introduction and Why the Book Was Written
  2. 03:00Personal Illness Stories and Sources of Healing
  3. 06:22How Illness Disrupts Couple Routines
  4. 09:53Illness as Revealer of the Relationship Bedrock
  5. 13:51Exercise: Ill Partner vs Caregiver Perspectives
  6. 19:10Shifting Roles from Partner to Patient and Caregiver
  7. 27:20Couple Stories on Boundaries and Shared Pain
  8. 40:20Choosing Hope and Managing Healthcare Together

Answers

Questions about this video

Why did the speakers write 'In Sickness and in Health'?

They noticed when they each went through their own illness experiences that there were no resources to help couples move through the illness journey together. Their work with couples and experts led them to write the book.

Does the speaker say illness always strengthens a relationship?

No. The speaker notes that illness can slice through to the bedrock of a relationship, which for most couples is compassion and love, but some find it is damaged and are happier apart.

What is the difference between healing and curing according to the talk?

The speaker explains that healing can happen in many different ways and is not the same as curing. Healing can occur day to day through support from partners, pets and practitioners even when a cure is not possible.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00
Speaker A
so I am a clinical social worker and a consultant, and I've worked with many, many couples living with illness and consulted to hospice programs. My co-author Roan and I interviewed many, many, many couples living with different kinds of illnesses
00:17
Speaker A
and many experts from diverse fields. We decided to write this book because when we each went through our own illness experiences, there were no resources out there to help couples move through this illness journey together. As Holly
00:38
Speaker A
said, the biggest takeaway from all of our work is that if you are part of a couple, the illness may live in one person's body, but it's two lives that are involved, two lives that are turned
00:52
Speaker A
in unexpected directions, and two minds and hearts and spirits that can be brought to bear on coping with the illness. So, Ran, when she was in her 40s, she went into the hospital for a planned heart operation, and she had a massive
01:12
Speaker A
stroke, and when she woke, the left side of her body was completely paralyzed. She was a mother with two young kids, and she was told that she should not expect to recover much mobility. I, about 15 years ago, came
01:30
Speaker A
down with a chronic pain condition, and I manage it every day. Some days are good days, and some days are bad days. Tonight is a great night, and I'm delighted to be here. I thank you all
01:46
Speaker A
for taking the time to come and talk with me and with each other about this topic. So, Roan, within two years she was literally playing the violin again, and if she were here, she would add, as
02:03
Speaker A
badly as ever. I have found many, many practitioners, alternative and regular health care practitioners, who have helped me in my pain journey. I would have to say that, while I'm very, very grateful to
02:26
Speaker A
all the excellent practitioners and healthcare providers who gave me great, great, great care, in terms of the sheer quantity of healing power, and by the way, healing doesn't mean curing. Healing can happen in many different ways, and it's not the same as curing,
02:44
Speaker A
when I use that word. So in terms of healing power day to day, what held me up first was my husband, Richard. This is the virtual version, and this is the human replica, but they're wearing the same shirt. He has many of this shirt, and next
03:04
Speaker A
was my dog, Mina. Some of you are nodding. Do some of you have pets? Cats, dogs, rabbits, turtles? So you know what animals can give you. So that's why we wrote this book. And in terms of how does illness affect
03:25
Speaker A
the couple relationship? It's not subtle. Illness is like holding up a giant stop sign to your relationship. I'm going to get good at this over the shoulder. Most couples, especially if you've been in the relationship for a while, the
03:47
Speaker A
rhythm of your relationship and your patterns are really set by your day-to-day habits. The chores you do each day become the momentum of your relationship. So chores like getting up, getting kids to school, going
04:06
Speaker A
to work, going grocery shopping, doing laundry, doing laundry, doing laundry, helping the kids with homework, doing your own work, and then watching yet another episode of Law and Order, and then going to bed. Illness, when it appears, stops all that. It derails those chores, which have been the drive in your relationship. It derails them, and the new touchpoints become doctors and hospitals and chemo and radiation and medication and side
04:29
Speaker A
effects and tests and waiting, and waiting for results, waiting to talk to you, Doctor. That's a very big shift, and it can happen very quickly, and that's a lot for a couple to adjust to. When I got sick, when this pain
04:49
Speaker A
condition happened, it hit me with a bang, and it felt like I had a bucket of broken glass just sloshing around inside, and I had to stop working. I didn't leave the house for almost a year.
05:07
Speaker A
Richard was my interface with the outside world. He dealt with the chores, and he dealt with the insurance companies, and for us it was a giant stop sign, and we were just thrown upside down. So that's how strong illness
05:25
Speaker A
can be. The punchline to my whole talk, and if you take away anything from this talk, this should be it: the punchline is that yes, illness disrupts your relationship. Yes, illness becomes the third partner in your
05:45
Speaker A
relationship, and illness often gets to determine what you do and how you do it, and its needs can supersede the couple's needs. Illness can determine if you can travel, if you can socialize, what you can eat
06:04
Speaker A
and when, and if you can sleep. That's the hard side. But the punchline is that it's that very disturbance and turmoil that illness produces that can break through relationship barriers and bottlenecks that may have been there for years, for
06:22
Speaker A
decades, and take the couple right down to the bedrock of their relationship. So illness can just slice through irrelevancies. It can illuminate what really, really matters and what doesn't matter, and it can take you right down to your bedrock,
06:46
Speaker A
and on that bedrock you will find the essence of your relationship. For most couples, that essence is compassion and love, and that is a very strong platform from which to not just survive but grow through illness. Now, can this happen for
07:06
Speaker A
every couple? No. No, some couples get down to their bedrock and they find that it's gravel, and it's been fracked, and it's toxic. And those couples may realize, because of the illuminating power of illness,
07:31
Speaker A
they may realize that they're better off apart, and they separate. And indeed, the couples who separated that we interviewed were happier apart. But as one of the experts we interviewed said, this was a Jungian analyst, and he said
07:50
Speaker A
that lovely phrase: illness can be the jolt that removes the dullness from life and unveils the potential. Now, some of you may nod your head and may have experienced that already, and I'm going to be talking about how you as a couple can unveil
08:11
Speaker A
that potential, how you can build relationship resilience so that you have a strong platform to support each other and to deal with the health care system. So, of all audiences, I can say this to you: I have to take medication, as many of you do, and it affects my short-term memory, so I'm going to, from time to time, refer to my notes. You get it. So that's the punchline: that illness can unveil the potential. I'd like to try a
08:32
Speaker A
little quickie exercise with you, and I'd like to start with the ill partner. So if you are an ill partner, or if you know somebody who is an ill partner, or if you can put yourself in the mindset of the ill partner in the
09:00
Speaker A
relationship, take a second and do that. Think about the experience of the ill partner, and I want you to just call out a word, any word, verb, noun, adjective, whatever. Any word at all. There's no right or wrong. Whatever you think depicts
09:17
Speaker A
something about the ill partner's experience. Say again?
09:35
Speaker A
relationship you know take a second and do that think about the experience of the ill partner and I want you to just call out a word any word verb noun adjective what any word at all there's no right or wrong that you think depict
09:51
Speaker A
Terrified. Terrified.
10:41
Speaker A
the in the frame of being the well partner the caregiving partner either if you are that or know somebody or you can just imagine it you're in the frame of the caregiving partner just call out a word that you
10:58
Speaker A
Lost. Lost.
11:30
Speaker A
yes that's you any other words sadness sadness okay these are all very powerful words um and there's a lot of overlap between the the two experiences but there also a lot of difference um and what this says to me hearing
11:52
Speaker A
No, loss. Just "loss." Okay.
12:11
Speaker A
that together and work as a team that load becomes a little bit more manageable um and that's what we'll be getting to so very important point the impact of illness is experienced differently by the ill partner and by the well partner by the
12:33
Speaker A
Terrified, terrifying. Loss. Anger. Anger. Fear. Fear.
12:47
Speaker A
um so their perceptions of the illness is different and their feelings about the illness is different and if the couple thinks that they're going through the same thing um and they're feeling the same way instead of connecting they're going to
13:02
Speaker A
Lethargy. What else?
13:18
Speaker A
not who she was she's not sure who she is now or will be and there is often a A unsettling gap between her internal interal image of herself which is usually younger and healthier and the external reality that's a that's can be a painful Gap and
13:39
Speaker A
Anxiety. Anxiety.
13:58
Speaker A
and he's flailing and he himself is feeling anger loss sadness everything that you said um and he's also feeling a tremendous sense of helplessness at having to witness and stand by and witness his sweee suffer um in addition he may be feeling anger
14:28
Speaker A
Unknown. Unknown.
14:43
Speaker A
convoluted and here's a scenario that one of the couples uh shared with us that can happen if the partners don't recognize that their experiences are different so she the ill partner she she decides she needs some alone time uh in order to just sit with
15:04
Speaker A
Okay, let's flip it and put yourself in the frame of being the well partner, the caregiving partner, either if you are that, or know somebody, or you can just imagine it. You're in the frame of the caregiving partner. Just call out a word that you
15:26
Speaker A
think expresses something about the caregiver's experience.
15:45
Speaker A
experiences are different so she instead says to him honey it's always a good word to start your request with honey um I need some alone time to just feel what I'm going through and um won't take too long I need some alone time and
16:05
Speaker A
Frustration. Frustration.
16:21
Speaker A
so I'm going to need to check in maybe once or twice and I hope that won't disturb you so what they're doing in the second scenario is they are recognizing that there are differences they're respecting their differences and at the same time
16:38
Speaker A
Helpless. Helpless.
16:59
Speaker A
becomes more a relationship of patient and caregiver and the patient is dependent and the caregiver um has to provide that's a big shift and I'll talk about that a little bit more in a in a minute but when that happens the focus
17:16
Speaker A
Helplessness. Helplessness.
17:41
Speaker A
hospital getting her chemo and he went out to sit in a hallway and he was sitting down on the floor with his head in his hands and Silent tears were coming down his cheeks and a doctor walked by and put his hand on his shoulder and
17:59
Speaker A
You were nodding your head. Was that frustration?
18:19
Speaker A
when he left the room and it was that extra burden that he was going to be taking back into the room to be with his wife now imagine if that doctor or anybody had come over patted him on the
18:31
Speaker A
Hope. Say again?
18:50
Speaker A
feelings back into the room and be stronger indeed be stronger for his wife and that's not just something that healthcare providers can do for caregivers we all can um anyone you know who's a caregiver just pat on the
19:07
Speaker A
Hope. Hope. Hope.
19:25
Speaker A
of say you know patch you on the back and they say rough night huh and they know what your experience is if you're a member of the secret society of caregivers and you go into work and you're tired and you look Haggard and
19:38
Speaker A
Other words? I'm going to call on people in green shirts. Yes, that's you. Any other words?
19:53
Speaker A
and Richard actually knows the secret handshake so if any of you want to learn it see him afterward I had the experience of belonging to that Society I've been the patient for 15 years I got used to being the
20:09
Speaker A
Sadness. Sadness.
20:27
Speaker A
bed and move around the house and prepare care healthy meals and monitor his cumin levels but I found it almost unbearable the helplessness of watching him suffer and not being able to do anything and so that word helplessness is I think one
20:46
Speaker A
Okay, these are all very powerful words. There's a lot of overlap between the two experiences, but there are also a lot of differences. What this says to me, hearing these words from you, is that when illness is in your life, there's a lot to hold, a lot of strong emotion to hold, and it's too much for one person to carry, and when the couple can carry
21:12
Speaker A
communication when it comes to roles the shift from being a partnership of equals to being a relationship of patient and caregiver for some couples it's a GameChanger I'm going to tell you two stories one story a man in his
21:27
Speaker A
mid-50s um he and his wife married when they were 20 and a year later she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and it was the kind that rapidly degenerated and he had been the caregiver for 30 years and as she got
21:41
Speaker A
worse he took on more daily living kinds of activities on her behalf so he he um re-architected the house so it was wheelchair accessible he basically raised their two daughters um he did the cooking as she got more debilitated he would bathe her
22:02
Speaker A
and wash her hair and dry her hair and dress her um and when he turned around 50 he decided he did not want to be celibate anymore he decided that he wanted to have the sexual part of his being find a
22:19
Speaker A
way to be expressed and to be satisfied so he found a sexual partner outside of their relationship and he continued to be caregiver for her and you might think that he had to look elsewhere because she wasn't physically able to have sex but that
22:40
Speaker A
that wasn't why the truth is that this shift from caregiver from equals to caregiver and patient just undid their relationship her primary relationship became with her illness and his primary relationship was as caregiver and if you're a caregiver
23:02
Speaker A
to a patient you don't have sex with that person so that was a boundary he couldn't cross so for them it was a GameChanger another example on another side of the spectrum of how a couple dealt with this shift in
23:15
Speaker A
roles um the wife had was in a car accident she had a lot of things that were going wrong and she also had some traumatic brain injury and um um she needed help doing doing daily living activities and her
23:34
Speaker A
husband said to her I'm not going to help you with any of that he decided he was not going to be the caregiver that he wanted to be the guardian of their adult relationship so that when she got
23:48
Speaker A
better and he had hope that she would get better um they they would not have that Legacy of patient caregiver to undo and she was furious at him for not helping her until she started to get better and then she realized that he had
24:07
Speaker A
made the right choice for them that he had Protected Their adult intimate relationship so all this is to say that serious illness chronic illness doesn't come with a rule book you make it up as you go along the
24:28
Speaker A
there's no right way what's right for one couple might not be right for another couple but there is benefit in at least hearing other couple stories and hearing how they did it and seeing and taking ideas from that but there is
24:44
Speaker A
no rulebook and we just do the best that we can do every day don't we we just do the best that we can do so communication how does it affect your communication but when illness comes into the picture almost immediately there is just
25:04
Speaker A
a whirlwind of feelings that are swirling around many of them you mentioned sadness anger um fear worry frustration rage um and these feelings uh are very powerful and naturally it it's it's hard for the couple to know what to do with them and
25:29
Speaker A
many couples in fact most couples keep them quiet they put them in a box they silence them or they try to silence them out of fear that if they were to speak about these hard negative feelings it might cause harm it might it
25:46
Speaker A
might just unleash um an endless Fountain of of pain and misery um so they they collude and keeping silent but keeping these feelings silent and quiet doesn't make them go away it just pushes them down um kind of underground and they
26:10
Speaker A
don't go away they continue to grow and they become so much subversive and they come out um I'm going to tell you about one couple this is from the book in sickness and in health I'm going to read
26:26
Speaker A
something about one couple who learned that speaking these feelings aloud doesn't destroy the relationship it strengthens the relationship even though it's frightening to do during the year that Francis and Ted were in therapy they learned to recognize their own emotions and to
26:52
Speaker A
appreciate the subtle and volatile ways their feelings could intertwine and ignite they learned how to to communicate with honesty about their needs and with empathy for each other's feelings they learned to speak the Unspeakable that was the phrase they
27:07
Speaker A
used to speak the Unspeakable Francis however continued to deteriorate her pain and exhaustion were debilitating she spent a year making the rounds of doctors and Specialists to no avail she took a leave of absence from work and stopped going out with friends
27:25
Speaker A
most nights Ted held her as she cried in frustration and pain trapped in agony with no answers Francis began to secretly contemplate suicide the past was over the present was unbearable and the future held no promise of relief Ironically in her desperate State
27:46
Speaker A
the contemplation of suicide became her only Ray of Hope but she did not think she could share it with Ted she hated keeping this secret from Ted but she feared this was one unspeakable that he could not handle this was consuming her more and
28:05
Speaker A
more and more to tell or not to tell until there was no room left for connecting with Ted and she felt loner and suicide became more of of of an option after struggling with this alone for several weeks Francis realized that
28:23
Speaker A
as hard as it would be for Ted to hear she had to share her fantasies about a suicidal cure with him she invited him into the living room they sat side by side and she simply said I have been thinking about suicide
28:39
Speaker A
the moment the words came out of her mouth her body relaxed after years of practice at empathic commun communication Ted did not react by discounting or challenging her feelings he did not say no you can't do that you don't know what you're
28:55
Speaker A
saying he looked into her eyes and calmly said you've clearly been hurting for a long time physically and emotionally I can understand that you would think about suicide any normal person in your situation would tell me about it they talked for the next two hours
29:16
Speaker A
and every time Francis came to a halt Fred just said tell me more until she emptied herself when she stopped they held one another and cross together the misery became a shared pain joining them and no longer a secret burden keeping them
29:35
Speaker A
apart feeling her World uplifted by Ted's strength and compassion Francis no longer needed to hold on to Suicide as her only Liberator they both knew it was an option but they could place it outside the space they had just
29:52
Speaker A
created available if needed but not overpowering their spirit that's a very strong example of speaking the Unspeakable but that technique of sitting down in a quiet time set aside with no interruptions and one person talks and the other one listens
30:14
Speaker A
and just keeps saying tell me more tell me more without attempting to respond or to solve any problems that that ability to empty into someone's empathic arms is very very powerful that's that's an approach that you all might want to
30:29
Speaker A
think about trying so what can a couple do to build resilience in their relationship the first thing is to really support each other [Music] um and given the Whirlwind of emotions that illness brings into your relationship it's easy to forget about
30:57
Speaker A
supporting each other you can be so consumed with the minutia of the illness and medication and chemo and radiation and doctor's appointments and drugs that you don't carve out time to just focus on each other so to support each other it's not about me
31:15
Speaker A
giving you a checklist of the five supportive things you can say it's about you building a platform a support platform a platform that's built on that Bedrock of love and compassion and from that platform you will just naturally reach out to each
31:34
Speaker A
other so I'm going to try and exercise with you this is a silent exercise another one it's called sitting in silence um and the way that couples do it is they find a time where they won't be interrupted and they pick a time five
31:49
Speaker A
minutes 10 minutes 20 minutes and they just sit in silence and in that silence what they do is they they summon they conjure up memories of joyous experiences that they shared they conjure up feelings of love and compassion they conjure up the
32:09
Speaker A
respect they have for each other they conjure up the values that they share so I'm going to ask you to just close your eyes we're just going to do this for a minute go you can close your eyes
32:26
Speaker A
and in that quiet place breathe quietly I want you to just think about think about your partner summon love for that person remember joyous moments that you shared appreciate who that person is okay you can open your eyes and just
33:06
Speaker A
breathe there's no sharing after you do this this is yours this is private this is yours you don't share it with me or with anybody else but you can carry it with you and from that place there will be a natural gesture of
33:24
Speaker A
Outreach to your partner okay the other thing that couples can do is practice what's called active coping and active coping doesn't mean thinking happy thoughts active coping means two things it means as much as possible make choices and decisions at
33:55
Speaker A
every point along the illness Journey so much is rested from your control take control wherever you can and make choices and the other thing active coping means is trying to stay as close to normal as possible what you think of
34:12
Speaker A
as as normal so if the illness is light normal might mean uh going on a trip it might mean socializing it might mean it might mean getting together with family and friends if the illness is in a in a heavier
34:31
Speaker A
phase you can as one couple did where uh he had pancreatic cancer and there were times when um he was bedridden and what they did is they chose to be as close to normaly as possible and what that meant is they
34:49
Speaker A
moved his bed just about into the kitchen so that he could be he could be in any state he needed to be in but he could hear the normaly of his family doing their thing in the kitchen and he
35:04
Speaker A
could feel comforted by that so staying as close to normal as possible and making choices one area where choic making becomes very very important is in your interactions with the healthc care system and my guess is that here at
35:21
Speaker A
Stanford Health um and in this support program that um your exper exp erience is probably not as dark as the experience of some other people we talk to who don't have as enlightened a Health Care system and you may have even run into
35:41
Speaker A
some for lack of a better term jerks um in your healthc care Journey also um but it becomes very important to challenge the doctor um to question a medical recommendation and it's really hard to do that alone um if Richard hadn't been in in at
36:04
Speaker A
an appointment with me um I would have had an unnecessary spinal tap because I wouldn't have had the strength to say what why do I need a spinal tap but together we could we could turn it into a choice and it was the right
36:19
Speaker A
choice um so here's how here's how one coule actively coped as Don and Robert learned how complicated and demanding Don's illness was they also realized that for them to get the care da needed they would have to take the initiative they would have
36:50
Speaker A
to be their own advocates in the healthcare system for Don and Robert the first step was to gather information about Don's condition and learn who had the expertise they needed Don asserted I will not have a passive relationship with my doctors I am not at
37:06
Speaker A
the mercy of my medical team they work for me I am in charge I get to make the decisions to take responsibility for your own health care is a fundamental component of active coping and as I said it's very hard to do solo so work as a
37:23
Speaker A
team together um to to make choices so during one hospitalization an intern was about to dispense a change in the medication Don had been taking successfully for many years for another condition Don told him you can't do this I am not just a body I
37:45
Speaker A
insist on being in this process as a partner this is non-negotiable you don't just do stuff to me get my doctor up here later that day the department head came into Don's room and thanked him we need to be reminded of this he
38:03
Speaker A
said one very important part of active coping and and being a proactive patient or is as one of my colleagues calls it being an e patient an empowered patient is is accurate information sharing um and that's two ways when you're speaking with your
38:28
Speaker A
doctor you need to make sure that you both understand what the doctor's saying because you're both going to come at it from different perspectives and both those perspectives are really important um and it's also about giving the doctor
38:45
Speaker A
accurate information about your state so there was one woman we interviewed uh and she said that when she went to see her doctor on a good day she might remember 30% of what she said for maybe 2 days so she started bringing her
39:01
Speaker A
partner with her and and the partner became the memory and the partner also took notes and the partner sometimes taped it on his iPhone but the partner was able to be be to be the brain for both of them
39:19
Speaker A
when it came to memory um also when the doctor would ask her how you doing and have you been doing since our last appointment M she would say oh great I'm doing great and the husband would say yeah you
39:34
Speaker A
are doing great that's terrific but you know you really haven't been sleeping very well and I think you've lost five pounds and the woman would say yeah that's true but I'm doing great so the partner sometimes has a more accurate
39:51
Speaker A
perspective um of change in status over a period of time because for the ill partner it's it's it's it's a it's an internal feeling and the partner the well partner is observing um my timekeeper is showing me I've got
40:13
Speaker A
three minutes left you've got more time actually yeah because that's just okay that was just a guideline okay see this is how we work as a team and actually it's true I am I am more feeling driven Richard is more data
40:28
Speaker A
driven we fit into that stereotype so he was definitely a more accurate reporter of of of incremental changes in my state from one visit to another um ah the third area where couples can build resilience someone used someone
40:49
Speaker A
called out the word hope very important um where couples can support each other and build relationship resilience there's been a lot of research done on Hope and and positive thinking and its effect on one's physiology and some of that research
41:07
Speaker A
shows that when you're in a state of hopefulness that um it affects your nervous system in such a way that it can create an Optimum environment for uh repair and it can affect your your respiratory system and your C circulatory system and your motor
41:30
Speaker A
system they also have found that being in a state of hopefulness um your your your brain releases um endorphins and en keyins which mimic the uh which mimic morphine that has the same effect as morphine on your body and so that
41:49
Speaker A
becomes um important in pain reduction um now I am not saying you know and this is in like bold neon letters I am not saying that that's the code for not saying not the secret handshake that's the code I am not saying that
42:08
Speaker A
um happy thoughts uh keep you healthy and and negative thoughts make you sick and if you could only think happy thoughts and you'd be fine you know if only it were that simple you know if only but that is not what I'm saying
42:21
Speaker A
what I'm saying is that creating hope feels good and when you are in a state of hope you feel lighter you feel more motivated and that can then lead to additional benefits and hope hope is not like a
42:42
Speaker A
shiny penny on the floor that you just happen to stumble on and pick up say now see I found hope hope is something that you actively create anywhere any time under any set of circumstances I realize that might sound
42:56
Speaker A
strange but really under any set of circumstances and very often this is my experience and also the experience of many of the ill Partners we spoke to they lost the directions to hope you know after three or four or five months
43:11
Speaker A
of trying to get the right treatment and then the the rigor of the treatment they just lost the directions to Hope and often it was the well partner who could hold the hope for the couple there was one woman who every
43:26
Speaker A
once in a while would go to her her her husband and say to him can you tell me about Hope and he would share his perspective on that they could there's still more things to try and um look what you're
43:41
Speaker A
able to do and I have hope for you and come let me hold you honey got to throw the word honey in there um so here's what one couple did to bring hope and choice into their experience this is the same couple this
44:03
Speaker A
is the man who had uh pancreatic cancer Chuck and Robin in deciding to pursue hope even in the face of an incurable illness were making a life affirming Choice instead of allowing the misery of a dire prognosis to
44:19
Speaker A
contaminate other areas of their life they made the conscious choice to strengthen the areas of normaly and love and keep their focus on healing what could be healed the power of the fear that attaches to illness is so
44:36
Speaker A
overwhelming it can easily diminish any potential for Joy it takes conscious effort to cultivate hope one way to choose hope is to focus on the present moment the feared prognosis lives in the future and may or may not happen the potential for a
44:53
Speaker A
healing of the Mind the spirit and the body and the the relationship occurs in every present moment living in the fear of the future does nothing to prevent the future from happening and only consumes one's inner resources in the
45:08
Speaker A
attempt it is only in the present that you can have direct impact the present offers you Limitless opportunities for choosing to hope that you can cherish life strive for joy and deepen love even within the sadness of illness you can
45:24
Speaker A
hope to find an acceptance of mortality which can then spark a profound appreciation for the gifts you have at hand now and finally I want to read you what one man said he also had cancer um this to me
45:47
Speaker A
is is another punchline to this talk the first punch line was that illness could be the jolt that unveils the potential the power of Hope is also another punchline so this is what he said spontaneously as we interviewed him
46:03
Speaker A
was so elegant he said there's always something to be hopeful about when you have health you can be hopeful about having any of your dreams come true once your body fails you you can rest your hope and your
46:18
Speaker A
emotions you can hope that you will still feel love and compassion for others and for yourself if your emotions become emptied you still have your spirit and you can hope to connect to something greater than yourself something that has a light
46:35
Speaker A
to shine on your Shadow and when the spirit is gone then you have become something else and who knows what hope awaits you there is that beautiful so we talked about how hope how illness becomes the Third partner in your
46:58
Speaker A
relationship and how its needs can sometimes take over and it can be a giant stop sign halting what used to be comfortable and it takes a while to figure out the The New Normal we talked about how the
47:12
Speaker A
experience is different for each partner and that it's really important to recognize that difference so that you can connect instead of kind of missing each other or colliding and we talked about ways that you could build relationship resilience important one is creating
47:32
Speaker A
that platform where you're dipping into your essence of compassion and love and supporting each other from that Essence and we talked about active coping active coping in terms of staying as close to normal as possible and making choices at every point along the
47:51
Speaker A
way and coping actively with the health care system and realizing that you're the boss and enlisting your partner in doing that because it's hard to do that alone and also and finally in creating hope that's that's the gist of my talk
48:11
Speaker A
um there are a few slides that I we have prepared for you as handouts they're just kind of summary slides more like checklist slides um about managing your own health care um we found that uh my keeping my
48:29
Speaker A
own case history and asking for copies of test results and scans was very useful as I went from Doctor to doctor and ask questions until you completely understand and if you leave the room and you realize you didn't
48:44
Speaker A
understand something then make sure you have that doctor's email address so you could ask them that became actually a criteria for us in choosing a doctor will you give me your email address managing the illness together think in terms of chunks what what are
49:00
Speaker A
my goals for this week this month this season don't think in terms of the whole spread just think in terms of chunks of time and ask for help and and there are many many resources I I point to to Holly um there
49:19
Speaker A
are many amazing resources out there that can support you um emotionally and also practically doing your laundry you know you know you can have a a meal chain where your friends and neighbors bring you meals if that's if that's what you want
49:34
Speaker A
and make choices turn things into choices wherever possible and in terms of the relationship I think the most important thing here two most important things is set aside time it's so easy for the illness to just wash over
49:54
Speaker A
everything reclaim time to sit and tell each other what's going on and ask and when each person talks the other one says tell me more and listens with empathy or you sit in silence for five minutes and think about
50:11
Speaker A
your connection to this other person set aside time that's really important and caretakers take care of yourselves That's essential because that feeling of helplessness can be so overwhelming do things that build you so that you can retain your
50:30
Speaker A
strength tell people how you sometimes kicked me out of a house to go visit my friends and tell people that that was important um when I when I first got sick and the broken glass was slashing around I I knew this was not going to be
50:46
Speaker A
a quick fix and I knew it was also going to be very intense for both of us and I said to Richard get thee to a therapist um and he did he he started seeing a therapist and I knew that that
50:58
Speaker A
was important because um I was no longer able to be his emotional receiver you know I couldn't support him anymore in that way I was too broken and I knew that he would need that kind of support elsewhere because I
51:18
Speaker A
wasn't going to be able to give it to him and I also insisted that he he go back and start doing his Taekwondo again and he next month he is going to be testing for his third degree black belt
51:31
Speaker A
good luck good luck is right good luck um anything else yes the other thing you did was you'd send me out at least once a week to go have dinner with a friend or just to go have fun on my own right say it repeat it so
51:47
Speaker A
oh yes the other thing I did was to send you out to go have dinner with a friend once a week um or do go to a cafe and just sit by yourself and read a book um and those are the ways that if you
52:01
Speaker A
have that platform that comes from your Bedrock it just becomes natural to to attempt to support each other and take care of each other in small ways even just saying you know thank you or or saying as as that
52:18
Speaker A
doctor didn't say saying I know this is hard for you to
Topics:chronic illnesscouples therapycaregivingrelationship resiliencehealing vs curingpatient-caregiver dynamicshopeStanford Health Careclinical social workcoping with illness

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