Muddying the Waters
Late Monday night, through a perfect storm of triggering factors, I experienced a nasty migraine aura, the likes of which I haven’t had in a very long time. This was no namby-pamby aura. No, this was the kind that came with flashing lights and shapes obscuring half of my visual field, leaving me with a…
Thoughts of Suicide and RA
Chronic illness and depression go hand-in-hand and so it is with RA. According to Johns Hopkins, chronic pain exacerbates depression and from an intellectual standpoint, it’s not surprising that some of those people who are depressed consider suicide. And some do more than consider. But this is not an intellectual post that delves into the…
Ready for My Close-Up?
Never in a million years did I imagine that someday, I would be in this situation. But I get ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. You may have noticed that I’ve been rather absent from the blog lately. As you may have suspected based on that photo up there, I have a…
Breaking News: I’m Not Crazy!
Between the damage from the big flare in 2004, as well as acquiring fibromyalgia around the same time, a number of interesting twists have been added to my life, the main one having become ridiculously sensitive. A millimeter’s worth of change can throw me off completely, triggering a cascading fibro flare with all its attendant…
For Grace: A Voice for Women in Pain
In my new post for HealthCentral, I did a follow-up interview with Cynthia Toussaint about her nonprofit foundation For Grace, an organization for women who live with pain: ‘“I wanted to start what I needed when I got sick.” Cynthia Toussaint is a woman with a mission. She wants to help women in pain get…
Helping Hands – Raisng Money for Show Us Your Hands!
You guys rock my world! In the last two weeks of September, I held a fundraiser for Show Us Your Hands! For every copy of Your Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis: Tools for Managing Treatment, Side Effects and Pain sold, 50% of the royalties would go to this organization that I love so much. And a…
The Aurora Foundation of Southern Arizona Seeks Editor for Online Publication!
Since June, I’ve mentioned now and again that I picked up another freelance gig, but haven’t said too much about it. I’ve been very lucky woman to have the opportunity to work for Stephanie Parker, President of The Aurora Foundation of Southern Arizona on a wonderfully exciting and important project. In the last four months…
Giving Thanks
I had a plan. This plan has been in the works for months and was directly related to The Boy and I going to the Toronto Islands with the intention to commit photography (our idea of romance). It never really happened in the Spring and then it got too warm — not for me, The…
Catastrophes and Calamities
It all started the weekend before my birthday when I was chewing some redleaf lettuce and lost a filling. I didn’t know it then, but it was the start of a cascade of catastrophes that has so far lasted four weeks. A few days after half my tooth fell out, my dentist told me I…
Brave
The term brave or courageous is often applied to those of us who live with a disability and equally often, you’ll hear me take issue with these bouts of admiration. And that’s usually because these labels are stuck on us not because we did something particularly brave, but because we got on with life. Instead…
7 Facets on CreakyJoints and Battle for Grace
It’s been a busy week. I’ve got two posts elsewhere, both related to Pain Awareness Month: First, the great people at CreakyJoints graciously allowed me to share more about 7 Facets: A Meditation on Pain. “‘So many live with pain, many more than you can imagine. A billion and a half of us all over…