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Lean on Me: Ten Powerful Steps to Moving Beyond Your Diagnosis and Taking Back Your Life
The prognosis you give yourself is the only one that's important. You can't allow yourself to become the victim of a negative prognosis. At the young age of thirty-three, Nancy Davis was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The finality of the neurologist's prognosis was devastating: "There is nothing you can do. Go home and go to bed...forever." Nancy left her doctor's office in shock and despair. How could it be that within a year she would be confined to her bed, at best able to push the buttons on her television's remote control? She had plans. She had a family. She had a life that she desperately wanted to live.
Nancy made a choice. Rather than accepting this hopeless prognosis, she began to educate herself, to create an effective health regimen, and to expand her range of therapeutic options. She literally reinvented her prognosis and in doing so she created a healthy new life.
"Lean on Me" couples Nancy's deeply personal story with a step-by-step guide to empower anyone to take charge of his or her own health care in the face of any life-threatening disease:
Step One Embrace Change
Step Two Fear Less
Step Three Never Take No for an Answer
Step Four Find Your Dr. Right
Step Five Build Your Health Team
Step Six You Are What You Ingest
Step Seven Let's Get Physical
Step Eight Explore Alternative Therapies
Step Nine Tame the Health Care Monster
Step Ten Give Back
Life-altering diseases often come with a list of "can'ts," "won'ts," and "no's." Nancy teaches readers how to move beyond these negative concepts and focus on what they personally can and will do to improve their health. Each of these steps offersreaders the strategies and strength to carry on when they're feeling overwhelmed, and the concrete tools for actively seeking and receiving the best treatment.
"Lean on Me" is the health advocate that each of us needs to adopt in the face of a medical crisis. It is a book that shows how to navigate the health care waters, to find hope, to take positive action, and to celebrate progress -- all kinds, every day. It provides the knowledge and power to make good choices. It supplies the authoritative information that can enable you to save your life or the life of a loved one.
Nancy made a choice. Rather than accepting this hopeless prognosis, she began to educate herself, to create an effective health regimen, and to expand her range of therapeutic options. She literally reinvented her prognosis and in doing so she created a healthy new life.
"Lean on Me" couples Nancy's deeply personal story with a step-by-step guide to empower anyone to take charge of his or her own health care in the face of any life-threatening disease:
Step One Embrace Change
Step Two Fear Less
Step Three Never Take No for an Answer
Step Four Find Your Dr. Right
Step Five Build Your Health Team
Step Six You Are What You Ingest
Step Seven Let's Get Physical
Step Eight Explore Alternative Therapies
Step Nine Tame the Health Care Monster
Step Ten Give Back
Life-altering diseases often come with a list of "can'ts," "won'ts," and "no's." Nancy teaches readers how to move beyond these negative concepts and focus on what they personally can and will do to improve their health. Each of these steps offersreaders the strategies and strength to carry on when they're feeling overwhelmed, and the concrete tools for actively seeking and receiving the best treatment.
"Lean on Me" is the health advocate that each of us needs to adopt in the face of a medical crisis. It is a book that shows how to navigate the health care waters, to find hope, to take positive action, and to celebrate progress -- all kinds, every day. It provides the knowledge and power to make good choices. It supplies the authoritative information that can enable you to save your life or the life of a loved one.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
7 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Nancy Davis
1 bookFounder, Center Without Walls
After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 33 in 1991, Nancy David was determined to devote her time, relationships and resources to finding a cure. Nancy’s hope, courage and strength continue to inspire her to maintain a vibrant quality of life despite this chronic disease, but most of all, she remains positive, continues to live her life to the fullest, and is tireless in her efforts to finding the cure for MS.
In 1993 she founded Race to Erase MS – an organization whose primary focus is to raise funds for the most cutting-edge, aggressive and promising research in an effort to find a cure for MS.
Funded by Race to Erase MS, the Center Without Walls program (CWW) has provided support that has permitted the medical community to link together multidisciplinary scientific programs and expertise across the country to advance the understanding of the cause of MS and to develop new treatments.
*Excerpted from bio page @ https://www.erasems.org/nancy-davis-b...
After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 33 in 1991, Nancy David was determined to devote her time, relationships and resources to finding a cure. Nancy’s hope, courage and strength continue to inspire her to maintain a vibrant quality of life despite this chronic disease, but most of all, she remains positive, continues to live her life to the fullest, and is tireless in her efforts to finding the cure for MS.
In 1993 she founded Race to Erase MS – an organization whose primary focus is to raise funds for the most cutting-edge, aggressive and promising research in an effort to find a cure for MS.
Funded by Race to Erase MS, the Center Without Walls program (CWW) has provided support that has permitted the medical community to link together multidisciplinary scientific programs and expertise across the country to advance the understanding of the cause of MS and to develop new treatments.
*Excerpted from bio page @ https://www.erasems.org/nancy-davis-b...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 28, 2014
See, the thing about books that can be classified as "self-help" is that they're only as helpful as the self perceives it. Same thing with religion. In either case, they don't work for me.
So Nancy Davis has MS. And apparently a cushy bank account and personal staff. This book wasn't so much about MS as it was about any horrible illness. And in trying to be many things to many afflicted people, it lost its impact in vagueness, and I wasn't left with much of anything that was useful. Even her personal accounts weren't very personal. She might as well have been writing fiction. Badly.
If the whole "I have MS, but MS doesn't have me!" schtick didn't totally turn me off (yes, that's an exact quote), her belief in homeopathy completely destroyed any and all credibility she might have for me. For every alternative therapy she wrote about, she never once cited actual factual evidence (because there is none) nor any of the studies that, at the very least, show these things have little to no therapeutic value, other than the all powerful placebo effect. Perhaps her California sun-soaked brain has all the vitamin D it needs and she can live in her bubble. More power to her. But she should have left her individual beliefs to herself instead of trying to thrust all this conflicting information on a population of people that are starving for a little bit of hope. It can be dangerous. But again, that placebo effect... and selling books. Hope, no matter how false, makes money.
I'm sure there's some practical information in here about dealing with health insurance companies and finding the right doctor, if you are utterly and completely clueless. I largely skipped through those sections, especially the one entitled "Build Your Health Team." It was so unfounded in reality for the vast amount of people with illnesses I couldn't stand it. And she was right about nutrition and exercise, but better books are right about that too, and they don't have so much nonsense to read through. Plus, anything that was written about in a useful way just reiterated the fact that things suck, they're difficult, and sometimes the smallest scrap involves a full-on battle. For a book that's supposed to be emphasizing "Life is swell! Things are great!," it was a conflicting message.
Like most everything, this book is a mixed bag. Mostly a mixed-bag of complete crap where you have to dig around for the occasional good item. There are better mixed bags out there where the filler amount isn't so great. I'm still trying to find them, because there has to be someone smart and inspiring and ungloomy out there that isn't full of maudlin platitudes and half-baked theories. Right?
So Nancy Davis has MS. And apparently a cushy bank account and personal staff. This book wasn't so much about MS as it was about any horrible illness. And in trying to be many things to many afflicted people, it lost its impact in vagueness, and I wasn't left with much of anything that was useful. Even her personal accounts weren't very personal. She might as well have been writing fiction. Badly.
If the whole "I have MS, but MS doesn't have me!" schtick didn't totally turn me off (yes, that's an exact quote), her belief in homeopathy completely destroyed any and all credibility she might have for me. For every alternative therapy she wrote about, she never once cited actual factual evidence (because there is none) nor any of the studies that, at the very least, show these things have little to no therapeutic value, other than the all powerful placebo effect. Perhaps her California sun-soaked brain has all the vitamin D it needs and she can live in her bubble. More power to her. But she should have left her individual beliefs to herself instead of trying to thrust all this conflicting information on a population of people that are starving for a little bit of hope. It can be dangerous. But again, that placebo effect... and selling books. Hope, no matter how false, makes money.
I'm sure there's some practical information in here about dealing with health insurance companies and finding the right doctor, if you are utterly and completely clueless. I largely skipped through those sections, especially the one entitled "Build Your Health Team." It was so unfounded in reality for the vast amount of people with illnesses I couldn't stand it. And she was right about nutrition and exercise, but better books are right about that too, and they don't have so much nonsense to read through. Plus, anything that was written about in a useful way just reiterated the fact that things suck, they're difficult, and sometimes the smallest scrap involves a full-on battle. For a book that's supposed to be emphasizing "Life is swell! Things are great!," it was a conflicting message.
Like most everything, this book is a mixed bag. Mostly a mixed-bag of complete crap where you have to dig around for the occasional good item. There are better mixed bags out there where the filler amount isn't so great. I'm still trying to find them, because there has to be someone smart and inspiring and ungloomy out there that isn't full of maudlin platitudes and half-baked theories. Right?
Displaying 1 of 1 review