The original title of this post was First Do No Harm, and it was an updated version of an old post I had written last year about a terrible (but unfortunately not uncommon) visit to the ER and being dismissed outright by the medical staff. The publication changed the title and it seemed to touch a lot of people who had been in similar situations. When an ER Nurse Blamed My Weight for My Chronic PainRead More →
Why I’m Giving Up New Year’s Resolutions This Year for My HealthRead More →
(Photo on the left was last night, and on the right is this morning.) Well, life as a MedicalOddity is never boring. My eye is well on its way to swelling shut. The fun never ends you guys! 🤪Read More →
I smile a lot. But I’m still sick. I’m sarcastic and use humor to navigate the highs and lows and everywhere in between. But I still suffer from rare disease. Sometimes I look just fine. But I’m still disabled. Looks can be deceiving and so can illness and disability. It’s an important idea to remember. Read More →
Okay, that title may be a little dramatic but, let me tell you, as a person that has always repeated the mantra: “failure to plan is planning to fail.” I like organization, I’ve always been a joiner, and, I like to control my own schedule. So, the learning curve on chronic illness has been brutal. Now, don’t get me wrong, with chronic illness you do a lot of planning, but it is mostly contingency planning (what to do when something goes wrong, i.e. your body does not cooperate, the venue is not accessible) rather than being able to plan out your day to day schedule,Read More →
Happy #LaborDay to all my friends that labor & to all that work tirelessly every day to make lives better for the American worker! #unionYes #unionsmatter #Unions *and, on a side note, I have a few blog pieces in the hopper and hope to back to it soon. Such is #chroniclife #spoonieproblems Read More →
I know it’s been a while since I’ve written, lots of stuff going on that’s hampered my ability to post, so I’m writing a quick check-in to say hello. The last month has been full of medication changes and weaning, new doctors, new injuries and diagnoses, and, a looooong heat-wave (that we are still in the midst of) has made life challenging, to say the least I’m hoping to have a new update soon, and you can always find me on Twitter here.Read More →
Profiles in Pain is a periodic guest column on the Tumor Blues Blog that highlights how individuals deal with pain and how it impacts the course of their lives. I first connected with Mia on Twitter of all places. We both had come to find other chronic illness sufferers who could understand the unique circumstances of living a life in pain (and do so in 140 characters or less!) and now, more than a year later, a friendship has blossomed. Mia is kind, funny and an exceptionally talented artist. She has a unique way of capturing what it is to be chronically ill and she’s takenRead More →
One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small And the ones that mother gives you Don’t do anything at all Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall –White Rabbit/Jefferson Airplane Some days being chronically ill is a merely a challenge, other days it’s a downright circus. Recently, life seems much more circus than challenge. Let’s start with the pills. On a good day, my pills are an absolute nightmare. On a bad day, well, hopefully there will be far less of them in the future (the terrible example here being the time I spoke to the cable company and completely blocked it from my memory.Read More →
