Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Back in March, I posted a blog titled “I’ve Been Struggling.” I shared that with you because I feel that it is important to talk about the rain and clouds in our lives. It is all too easy to filter our social media to include only the sunshine and rainbows, but I feel like this is a disservice to everyone. It creates this illusion that those who are having mental health struggles are alone in those struggles when that just isn’t the case. “It is estimated that more than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (57.8 million in 2021).” [1] Which means that having mental health struggles is a common human experience.
Continue reading “I’m Still Struggling”Tag: chronic illness
Myths and Misconceptions About Chronic Illness
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I wanted to address some of the myths that I frequently hear regarding people who have chronic illnesses.
Continue reading “Myths and Misconceptions About Chronic Illness”The Catch 22 of Chronic Illness
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I just wanted to talk about the catch 22 of chronic illness. What’s the catch 22? How difficult it can be to judge how much or which activities are going to be alright and which ones are going to cause problems. One thing that almost every provider and most spoonies talk about is how important it is to manage and prevent your symptoms. What isn’t talked about enough is that this isn’t a simple equation that’s all worked out for us that will determine how to behave in order to achieve the best outcomes.
Continue reading “The Catch 22 of Chronic Illness”Patient-Provider Relationship
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to express some of the thoughts that I have on the patient-provider relationship. I think there is much to be said about the importance of the provider patient relationship. Trust is what good care is built upon. I know that I cannot care for patients that do not trust me. Nothing good can come from any relationship that lacks trust. And right now, healthcare providers are loosing trust.
Continue reading “Patient-Provider Relationship”Comfort Foods
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about comfort foods. We’ve all got them. Those things that we like to eat and drink because they help us emotionally feel better. They are foods that we associate with the goods times in life. For those of us with chronic illness, they are also foods that are safe for us to eat. Ones that won’t lead to us having a flare or trigger sensory issues.
Continue reading “Comfort Foods”I Struggle with Ableism
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about ableism and how I personally struggle with the ablest thoughts and beliefs that I was raised with. When we think about someone having discriminatory thoughts and behaviors against a group of people, we generally assume that it is a person that is outside that group. But the truth is that part of the discrimination within our society is within the people that are being discriminated against.
Continue reading “I Struggle with Ableism”Simplifying Life
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about how I went about simplifying my life. By this, I mean how I reduced the amount of energy I needed to spend every day in order to accomplish everything that I need to. For those of us with chronic illness, we often find that there are more things that we are expected to do then we have energy for. This means that we need to take a close look at our lives and decide what we need to cut away and what needs to remain.
Continue reading “Simplifying Life”The “Good Enough” of Health Choices
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about the vast area of grey that exists in the world of being healthy and making healthy choices for yourself. Generally speaking, when people talk about things being healthy or not, they tend to consider things in an all or nothing fashion. But the truth is that nothing in life or in your health works in an all or nothing fashion.
Continue reading “The “Good Enough” of Health Choices”Pinky Toe Spacers
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to give a product review for the pinky toe spacers that I tried out. First, I wanted to explain the problem that I was trying to fix. My pinky toes are crooked and they sit underneath the adjacent toe which causes a great deal of pressure on both toes when ever I walk. This is a source of chronic foot pain for me. I was hoping that a spacer would hold the punky toe over and prevent it from being walked on.
Continue reading “Pinky Toe Spacers”My Greatest Fear
Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about some of the fears that I struggle with in context of my prognosis. All of us with a chronic illness are fully aware that our condition is a life long state of being. For most of us, it also means that we are facing a future that promises less than desirable outcomes.
Continue reading “My Greatest Fear”
Zebra Pig 