Blog Articles About Chronic Illness

Figments of the Imagination

Jenni over at ChronicBabe had a plan for her month-long sabbatical: ask for guest posters. My contribution appears today and is cross-posted here. Thanks for including me, Jenni! “I’m so relieved I’m not crazy!” Someone I know has just – finally – received a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. When she told me what happened in…

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Like Snow: 13 New Names for Different Types of Pain

Updated November 21, 2021 Most people have an only occasional experience with pain and as the language of a culture is shaped by the majority experience, our world lacks descriptors of pain beyond the basic – burning, stabbing and not much else. Those of us who live with chronic pain know that it is a multifaceted creature. Legend…

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Low send over a field of sunflowers. Text in the title graphic: "Like Me: Finding My RA Community and Why It Matters." Logo for The Seated View

Like Me: Finding My RA Community and Why It Matters

Updated November 12, 2022. Being different is both external and internal. Being the only person who looks a certain way set you apart in a group, designates you as Other. Even when the members of the group are your friends, there is something that makes you feel set apart. Finding your community, the people who…

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Under the Shoe

The other day, I was rooting through my recent archives to find a post in which I had dissed The Lord of the Rings so I could put a link to it in Friday’s post. I never found it, but I did find several posts about my inability to stop being busy, the ever-present threat…

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Going Deep

Updated June 21, 2020 One of the favourite books of my childhood was Heidi, the story of a little girl who lived on the Alm (Alp) with her grandfather (first published in 1880, more here). I haven’t read the book since I was 12 or 13 and didn’t remember much more then that. In a…

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Pluck: The Myth of Overcoming Illness and Disability

Updated July 14, 2024 The other day, as I was doing preliminary research for how I’d to spend my two allotted monthly credits at Audible, I came across a new release called Strong at the Broken Places: Voices of Illness, a Chorus of Hope, which looks pretty interesting. I haven’t fully made up my mind…

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Rated PG for Nudity: Diving Deeper Into My Story

Updated September 26. 2024 I’ve been thinking a lot about getting naked lately. Not the regular kind of unclothed – sorry to anyone who’d started drooling and to those of you who covered your eyes, you can read on without trepidation. I’m talking about the kind of naked that shows the real you – or…

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