An Introduction

By way of introduction to this column, please allow me tell you a little about myself. Ever since I was a kid, I was passionate, nay obsessive, about my health. I exercised every day, ate all the right foods and kept my weight fighting fit. Swimming, martial arts, athletics, gymnastics. Cricket. I thrived on competition – both against others and against my own benchmarks.

So, when in 1983 I was diagnosed with the rarest form of leukemia for which there was no cure at the time, I was shocked beyond belief.
And because diet had played such an important role in my life, I turned to different diets in an attempt to overcome my disease. I left no leaf, seed or herb unturned in my quest.

In the end, modern medicine came to my rescue as it has through all my subsequent encounters with recurrences and other life-threatening diseases including lung cancer, 5-way coronary by- pass surgery, and kidney failure as a result of a mismatched blood transfusion.

The lessons I learned through my own experiences and in my practice as a psychotherapist over twenty years have taught me many things I hope to share with you through this column.

In this regard, I welcome your questions and hope to be able to answer each and every one of them in a way that matches your particular need. This website is dedicated to health, not only for people who have never faced a serious illness in their lives, but for those who are currently battling a serious illness or are in subsequent recovery and seeking ways to regain their health.

Health is about both the mental as well as the physical, so while you may not be able to do much about the latter in this regard, there’s a lot you can do about the former than will benefit the way you manage the latter.

From the outset, let me say that I do not endorse the use of unproven treatments to reverse the course of a disease. I encourage you to work with your physician and allied health professionals mindful that you have a pivotal role to play in your recovery.

The fact is, we can’t always change the situation in which we find ourselves, but we can always change our response. We can choose to see life as a series of stumbling blocks or as stepping-stones. We can choose to see the path as a roadblock or a new path. For me, that other path led me to setting up Life Goes On (http://www.lifegoeson.org.au) – a unique organization dedicated to providing the skills and inspiration to help people live with serious physical illness. Indeed, Life Goes On is the only organization anywhere dedicated to helping people get on with life despite their illness or the death of a loved one.

Our new website will be up soon and will include among its many innovative features some amazing survival stories and the opportunity for you to view streaming round table discussions on a host of issues for patients as we all their family and friends.

If you have any health or illness related questions you would like me to answer, please don’t hesitate to email me at joel@healthnews.com
My answers to your questions will be posted on our blog and it is my sincere hope these will be helpful to you.

In light and peace,

Joel