Ｒｅａｌ Ｐａｔｉｅｎｔ Ｓｔｏｒｉｅｓ: Self-Advocacy

After his surgery, Mark was in bad shape. In the months that followed, he was rushed into the emergency room three times for post-op complications. After a lot of years, appointments, expenses and more trauma, Mark was left living in unrelenting chronic pain.  He felt abandoned (by the healthcare system), without any support, but pushed through to reclaim his life. It was due to his desire to get healthy and keep moving forward that Mark decided keep doing what he always had, being proactive so that he wasn't completely dependent on the medical community. Part of that was taking ownership to work as a team with his physicians.

On the advice of a friend early in his healthcare journey, Mark kept a health diary. At first he thought it was unnecessary, because he believed he was going to heal and it would all be behind him, but now he has years worth of full binders related to his health plan, that help him be engaged in his health. Every time he had a test done, he would ask for a photocopy, asking for medical records to add to his binder.  He would also bring a list of symptoms and questions to every appointment, even drawing diagrams in his health diary if necessary. 

Advocating for himself was important to Mark because no one cared more about his body than he did, no one knew it better, no one else could feel his pain. It was his body, he had to be involved in it's care. 

Be involved for better health outcomes!

* 𝘐𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯’𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘣𝘢 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘣𝘢 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘗𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘧𝘦𝘵𝘺.