This BLOG is a companion to my book, “Talking About Health: Why Communication Matters” published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2009. While writing it, many experiences from my personal and professional lives merged. Only six years old when unsecured kitchen cabinets worked their way loose from my parent’s apartment kitchen wall, I suffered a fractured leg that would grow to be a different length than my other leg. Because doctors do not usually ask us about whether we’ve had any broken bones as part of history-taking forms, it would be decades before anyone realized that one leg was an inch longer than the other and wrecking havoc on one hip, one knee, and even the arch of one foot. It has come to be symbolic for me, evidence that what we communicate about matters, and that sometimes we will have to be the one to think outside the box when choosing the topics to talk about our health. The book starts the conversation. My hope is that we will continue it here.
Roxanne Parrott, PhD