The fear of the unknown…

March 14, 2020.Reading time 10 minutes.

Life is scary for all of us right now. None of us have experience with this, so I’ve been following the recommendations of WHO (World Health Organization), the CDC (Centers of Disease Control), and the ACR (American College of Rheumatology). I did reach out to my personal rheumatologist and her advice was to get blood […]

Unexpected goodness

March 9, 2020.Reading time 9 minutes.

This has been a crazy week. Watching the news and all the information regarding COVID-19. Of course the first known person in Pennsylvania happened to live about 4 miles from me. I heard as I was pulling into a gas station to fill up my tank. I found napkins before picking up the nozzle and […]

Hold the lime…

March 1, 2020.Reading time 13 minutes.

So if you are immunocompromised like me, the presence of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has you feeling uneasy. Between the political jockeying, the stock markets dropping, and the news cycles spreading panic, it’s hard to know how much information to take to heart. I know I panic every flu season, so this added virus is […]

Out of the blue..

February 26, 2020.Reading time 4 minutes.

I was hanging out with friends Saturday night. I had a good time, nothing big, just friends sitting around having a few drinks and fun. I went home around 1 am and went to bed. Almost immediately, I had bed spins. I didn’t drink enough for bed spins so I thought it was odd. I […]

Rheumy Rounds™, part 2…

February 17, 2020.Reading time 4 minutes.

IFAA just put out the 2nd part of our first episode of Rheumy Rounds™, a breakout series from our ArthritisVoices360 podcast. In this episode we talk about the doctor/patient relationship. We also touched on what a patient expects to accomplish during visit as opposed to what a rheumatologist expect to accomplish during a visit. It’s […]

Rheumy Rounds™…

February 12, 2020.Reading time 3 minutes.

I recently started a foray into podcasting with my IFAA cofounder Tiffany. She is the brains behind the project, in which patients co-host a podcast to discuss issues impacting patients in the autoimmune/autoinflammatory arthritis community. Our latest series is called “Rheumy Rounds”. Personally, I think it is ground breaking. How many of us (patients) have […]

To be or not to be….disabled.

January 23, 2020.Reading time 5 minutes.

I am active in the patient community so I know a lot of people who are on disability due to chronic illness. Their age, gender and race all vary, but the one thing they have in common? The majority of them wish they could still work. The majority of them are dirt poor, especially if […]

Who am I??

January 15, 2020.Reading time 10 minutes.

I was recently interviewed for a project. I was asked to describe myself. So I talked about my career as a speech language pathologist, educator, patient, patient advocate, and writer. I described my life as a single woman living with multiple chronic illnesses and how I take care of a dog with more chronic illnesses […]

This is, I mean Hindsight is 20/20…

January 2, 2020.Reading time 3 minutes.

I’ve documented pretty clearly that my 2019 was for all intents and purposes, craptastic. As a result, I’ve become a person that I don’t recognize in the mirror. I’m not big on making New Year Goals. I never keep them. What I am going to do is focus on being positive and making small positive […]

Fa la la la la lazy…..

December 22, 2019.Reading time 13 minutes.

Christmas is in 4 days. Are my gifts wrapped? No. Am I packed? No. My decorations are minimal….and so is my Christmas spirit. My 2019 was extra crappy. Here is a little recap…. January: I started the year with a broken foot/non-weight bearing. On January 2, my cat tripped me and I ended up tearing […]