Looking Forward
It’s time to reflect on MyRACentral: “Have you decided what’s wrong with you yet? After all, it’s what making resolutions is all about, isn’t it? To review your life, to find it wanting, to pick it apart and identify areas of dissatisfaction and is it any wonder so many of us get depressed around New…
The Year That Was: Knowledge & Community
This week on MyRACentral, I prove myself to not be immune to the trend of recapping the year: “The end of 2009? Already? Are you sure? Wasn’t it just July? But no, all the signs are there. My windows are frozen shut after the first winter storm of the season, the supermarket is playing muzak-ified…
Designing Woman with RA: An Interview with Louisa Summerfield
Last week, I spoke to a very interesting woman: “Louisa Summerfield, 43, has turned what many see as adversity into an advantage. Diagnosed at age 9 with severe juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, she started using a wheelchair in her early teens. Not finding what she was looking for in comfortable, fashionable clothes, she founded WheelieChix-Chic in…
Your Wardrobe & RA
The holidays are loomin… I mean, on their way (me?m started shopping yet? A-hem…), so this week’s HealthCentral post is about finding a wardrobe that works for RA: “The holiday season is almost upon us and whether that means you’ll brave the crowds on Black Friday to hunt the sales or have started percolating your…
Giving & Receiving Care: The Challenges
This week on MyRACentral, I ponder giving and receiving care: “What does it do to a relationship if you can’t storm off in a huff after a fight with your significant other because you may need to help them go to the bathroom first? And what does it do to a relationship if you feel…
Spoons Are Not Just for Soup Anymore
My latest HC post is up: “There I was at the computer, staring at my monitor, seeing a vast expanse of white space that needed to be filled with this post. This post about spoons. I stared at it on and off for six hours and nothing came to me — well, nothing other than…
Great Expectations
Not surprisingly, I’ve been thinking of dreams and how to make them a reality and I wrote some of those thoughts down for this week’s HealthCentral post: “Be kind to yourself, we say. Work within your limits, we say. Accommodate your illness. Don’t push yourself too hard. Sometimes, it sounds as if now that you…
The R-Word
Me? Superstitious? Nahhh… (knock wood): “‘Are you in remission?’ I cannot answer. My throat is closed, the words caught somewhere deep within. I can’t even answer the question in writing, instead starting the sentence and then deleting, starting another one, phrased slightly differently and delete that, too, before I even get to the part about…
Parenting Teens with Rheumatoid Arthritis
This week’s HealthCentral post wonders what if it’s not you who have RA – what if it’s your kid? “When I was a teenager, I wanted nothing to do with doctors, hospitals and physical therapists. I was done with blood tests, trying medications that weren’t working and soaking my hands in paraffin wax until it…
Wrangling Life with RA
This week, I post about pirates at HealthCentral: “I got hijacked last week. Not by pirates with cutlasses, eye patches, bad teeth and a shoulder-perched parrot squawking obscenities. Instead, my week was hijacked by something much more bureaucratic: an agency deciding I needed to devote days to doing enough paperwork that I suspect they’ll need…
A Beginners Guide to RA: Pain Management
This week, my HealthCentral post is about pain and how to manage it. How apropos. I really am trying to practice what I preach. Most of the time. “Rheumatoid arthritis is a pain in the… well, it can pretty much be a pain anywhere and everywhere. Whether you’re dealing with the intense pain of a…
Health Care Reform: The Arrogance of the Healthy
Time for a wee rant over at HealthCentral: “Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, believes putting a dollar value on human lives is the key to health care reform. Placing a value on human life will enable us to ration health care to get the “most bang for your buck” by denying…