Johannesburg
JOHANNESBURG 2010 MEETING SCHEDULE
Date Subject Speaker
14 August TBC Danielle Fraide (TBC)
13 November Arrhythmia TBA
Report back on Meeting held on 15 May 2010The meeting was attended by 22 people of among whom were four new members. One of the new members Reginald Tshiembe from Toyandou in Limpopo Province, had received his implant in September of 2009. The Born family, lost their eldest daughter recently, she suffered from Long QT syndrome. This just brings home to us the importance of educating the public and General Practioners of the dangers of arrhythmia in all its forms
The speaker was a follow up from our last meeting, with Dr Edie Wolff, a psychycologist, speaking on stress with particular emphasis on the care giver. What was enlightening was the effect that the stress cycle has on the health of both the patient and the care giver, both prior to and after treatment. He emphasized that once we have received our implants and are feeling better, we should now begin to take care of our partners. This in order to avoid your partner becoming ill or prone to illness.
At question time, there was lively discussion, on patients not listening, being headstrong and obstinate. This evoked a fair amount of laughter.
The meeting also discussed future meetings, it was decided to try and revisit Medtronic and have Danielle Fraide speak, at the end of August. The November meeting we should try to get Dr. Obel or Dr Thornton to address us.
By: Tony Michler – Johannesburg Support Group
Report back on Meeting held on 14 February 2010
The first meeting of the group for 2010, was held on Saturday 13 February, at the Sans Souci Hotel at the Milpark Hospital. Thirty-nine people attended the meeting, which was addressed by Dr. Eddie Wolff a Psychologist, who spoke on "Stress and how you feel about your device".
After having the persons with a device fill out questionaires on how we all felt about the device, he then gave us a number of pointers on what the result meant. He proceeded to tell us how to change our attitudes towards how we live and how to change our lifestyle ( not very easy, he said), but we should never the less try.
At the end of the meeting he suggested that at another meeting he would be happy to address the issue of how our partners and caregivers should handle the situation. This was readily accepted and the group will try to have Dr. Wolff speak at our next meeting in May.