The AID Principle or How to Open a Door
Sometimes, you meet someone who really gets it. I was swinging by my dentist with the latest payment on the crown that cost enough that I’m sure it’s made of a giant ruby. Since nobody was about on the sidewalk, I knocked on the window and waved madly to catch the attention of someone who…
Real RA: It’s Not Just About the Jar
The drug commercials like to show couples walking on the beach with a dog (it’s always a beach with a dog), but real RA is not like that. The image of remission is a return to sparkling health with no lasting effects, but real RA is not like that. This is the first in new…
Resolved
It’s commonplace to make promises to yourself around this time of year and normally, my primary promises to not get caught up in the resolution obsession. Too often, it leads to a severe case of self-loathing as you take stock of your life and find it wanting, making promises to yourself that you don’t keep….
Leading with Joy
“You must be very angry.” This was the (rather leading) question of one of the journalists I spoke during my brief tenure of being a spokesperson for the Health Council of Canada. We’d been discussing the eight months I waited for funding approval for Enbrel, of how the RA ate my life and made me…
The Girl in the Bubble
48 hours after our last weekend together, The Boy came down with the plague. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t bubonic, but it certainly was a particularly pestilential case of the flu. The Boy rarely gets sick – he’s one of those annoying people with an iron constitution – and when he does get sick, it’s…
Talking About the Money
“You assume that it’s all covered.” It was at the tail end of my interview with the CBC – no, not shameless name dropping, actually relevant to this post. (shameless self-promotional links to two of last week’s interviews at the end of this post). I was chatting with the reporter and cameraman as the equipment…
Everything – A Re-Post
On Monday, in the Health Council of Canada video I talked about the consequences of not being able to get the medication you need because of cost. Yesterday, I posted my guest blog for the Help Council of Canada about the cost of chronic illness. Today, I’d like to shares something I posted back in…
The Cost of Chronic Illness
This week, I’m one of the spokespeople for the Health Council of Canada in relation to the release of their latest report on how Canadians with chronic diseases rate their health care system. Today, my guest blog appears on their blog site. I wrote about the cost of chronic illness: When we talk about the…
In Which I Become a Spokesperson
Today, the Health Council of Canada releases their latest report called “How Do Sicker Canadians with Chronic Disease Rate the Health Care System?” This is not the first report they have released – their mission is to “[t]o report on the renewal of Canada’s health system, focusing on best practices and innovation.” I love this…
Anger and Shame
As you’ve no doubt noticed, I’ve been pretty angry lately. It happens when I’m very tuned into political issues. And it happens a lot when I’m tuned into political issues that relate to vulnerable populations (usually double levels of injustice). Lately, I’ve been blogging a lot about disability issues and well… This is one of…
International Day of People with Disabilities
Saturday was the International Day of People with Disabilities. This is a day proclaimed by the UN and this year, the theme was “together for a better world for all:including persons with disabilities in development.” this became particularly amusing (but not in a good way) when you consider everything that’s happened in our fair city…
Caregiving for Dementia: How to Support with RA
November was Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, as well as National Caregivers Month in the US and HealthCentral marked it by doing a special project where writers from different sides wrote about dementia and Alzheimer’s. Earlier this month, I wrote about dementia caregivers’ increased risk of developing autoimmune diseases and this week, I take a more personal…