Margaret Chesney, National Institutes of Health
Excerpted from The New Medicine Interviews

As we age, we will face chronic illnesses that will challenge us… This is part, unfortunately, of aging for many of us. I’ve learned wonderful lessons from patients that I’ve worked with who had congestive heart failure and knew that they had limitations on what they could do… And, there is a way of managing illness that is very positive and proactive where patients…develop a patient plan for themselves – their own treatment plan.

They would have fun activities and enjoyable activities, even within whatever constraints they might have that became part of their life plan. That means putting illness into its place... It’s important, but there’s a whole life as well – fitting illness into life rather than trying to fit life into illness.