TM Support Group of Maryland / Washington DC
Alan and Kelly Connor

The MD/DC support group has had two meetings since our inaugural meeting in March 2003. We met in September and again in January 2004. The meeting in September was held at Snyder’s restaurant. Dr. Adam Kaplin, Consulting Psychiatrist, JHTMC, was our guest speaker. He spoke on TM and Depression. A detailed article is available on this subject in the October 2003 issue of the TMA newsletter. We had 12 people at this meeting.

In January, our meeting was held at Gunning’s Seafood restaurant. Our guest speaker was Dr. Stephen Wegener, a psychologist at the Good Samaritan Rehab Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Wegener is also a consultant for the JHTMC. Dr. Wegener addressed the psychological aspects of recovery and living with a chronic illness. In summary, there are three things that people who do well after TM have in common. The person feels supported, they are flexible, and the individual has an activity or something to look forward to. We also discussed some of the ways TM’ers can improve their outcome: Be pro-active in your care, by finding doctors that will listen and work with you, control depression, control pain, and have an exercise program to keep yourself as active and healthy as possible. We had 14 members at this meeting.

Our next meeting is scheduled for May 15, 2004, and our guest will be Julie Farace, RN from the JHTMC. Ms. Farace will be discussing what a typical visit to the TM center is like, as well as what services are provided there. We will also be discussing some of the common residual effects of TM and the associated treatments. I know some of our regular members will not be able to make this meeting and we will miss you. We hope to also see some new faces.

We have been participating in some fundraising. (Fundraising is strictly voluntary and not required to join us for meetings). We are selling raffle tickets that will raise $300 for the TMA. This raffle takes place in mid-May.

Take care,

Alan and Kelly Connor

(410)766-0446

kac61[AT SIGN]cablespeed.com

ravenalan[AT SIGN]cablespeed.com