Palliative Care Can Help You Live a Quality Life with EADs
Courtesy of The Center to Advance Palliative Care and www.GetPalliativeCare.org
It’s easy to forget the things you love about life when you have a serious illness.
Eosinophil-associated diseases are chronic and require long-term management. The symptoms may be debilitating and can often lead to missed time at school and work. They may greatly impact your quality of life.
So, think about it for a moment – what’s important to you? Do you love live music or dancing? Do you feel happiest reading or traveling? Or is your happy place enjoying time with your family and friends?
Doctors are often too busy to stop and ask you what you want out of life, but your answer to that question is very important. Palliative care can help you live a good life, the way you choose to live it.
Palliative care (pronounced pal-lee-uh-tiv) is specialized medical care for people with serious illness. It focuses on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of serious illnesses, such as eosinophil-associated diseases. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.
Palliative care is provided by a specially-trained team of doctors, nurses, social workers and other specialists who work together with a patient’s doctors to provide an extra layer of support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with routine curative and all other treatments.
Palliative care team members can help you find relief from your symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue. Managing these symptoms can give you the strength you need to carry on with your daily life. It can also help you cope with your medical treatments. And it can help you start enjoying life again.
The team will spend as much time as needed to understand your situation and learn about what is important to you. They will help you match your goals to a plan for your care.
Quality of life is important. You don’t have to wait until your symptoms become serious to ask for palliative care. In fact, the sooner you get palliative care, the better for you and your family.
For more information about palliative care, visit www.getpalliativecare.org. You can also listen to an audio podcast with Aly Becker, who lives with EAD, and see if there is a palliative care provider in your area by checking this provider listing.