Own Your Care

A very useful and thoughtful book concerning managing your health and that of your family. Discussed how to cope with making difficult decisions and also answers many of the questions you may have about managing end of life topics. A comforting book that helped our family a lot.

Ms. lee has written a pretty informative book here.
She explains to the caregiver and the care recipient. Telling stories from patients she has cared for in the past, she enlightens us as to what CPR is, palliative care, hospice care.
She explains the mental health directions a diagnosis can elicit. How to talk to your family and even the potential forms you should consider.
This is a difficult world to navigate in print because dying has been for far too long viewed as something we mustn’t want to do. People often are afraid to die as if it is a preventable thing.
The truth is that people do die. Sometimes in sickness or an accident or just old age. This book gives you at least a basic understanding of how to choose your care as your time approaches. Maybe you want every treatment possible, maybe you don’t.
This is not a book advocating causing your own death but rather a book that helps you decide if you want every treatment available or just some of it. In other words some options to consider.
I hope you read this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me this ARC.

I have been a family member of a stage four cancer patient and if I had had Own Your Care with me, so many things would have been different! From start to finish, Dr. Lee covers everything a person or a family member needs to navigate a life changed by illness.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is that Dr. Lee delivers what she promises. Her explanations, questions, scenarios, and stories capture everything needed to make solid decisions about the rest of your or loved ones life.

After reading this book, I can see what we as a family could have done differently with my grandfather's complex health issues and when his health both changed and declined, Even communicating with other family members and medical professionals would have looked so differently. Now that I am equipped with this information, I can anticipate and communicate the wishes and needs of myself and/or a loved one if something unexpected happens.

Thank you NetGalley and Girl Friday Productions for sending this electronic book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

“Own Your Care” by Jeanne Lee, MD Is a comprehensive book for both patients and caregivers covering many aspects of life with a chronic illness. The thing I liked most about the book is that the author focuses on helping the reader explore the idea of quality of life vs quantity of life. This is something that I feel like many people don’t consider enough. The author provides concrete examples of how different people have different ideas of what this means. She also highlights the differences between palliative care and hospice care; encouraging families to explore the help of palliative care specialists which are often underutilized. The book’s chapters are organized in a logical order going from receiving a diagnosis to end of life concerns. The chapters can be read in any order though, depending on where you are in the healthcare journey. Within each chapter are subsections and bolded bullet point questions geared towards both the patient and family members. I like that there is also an appendix listing these questions, a glossary of terms, and resources for further information. My only criticism is that the book is very text-heavy; I wish there was a bit more color in the form of photos, illustrations, charts or diagrams. Anything to help break up the long blocks of text and bullet pointed lists. Overall, I’d’ I recommend this book to both patients and family/friends of those living with chronic or complex health issues.