When chronic illness becomes a new kind of normal, it also becomes a cruel existence, one in which pain is a constant torture and exhaustion is as frequent as breathing.
A New Kind of Normal
Why I STILL Take My Health For Granted
Telling myself to not take my health for granted has always been a mental game I've played, an affirmation, perhaps even a mantra that I've repeated to make myself feel better about the fact that scary stuff can happen to anybody, at any time.
Tell the world (or just your friends):
I Went Outside. Sort of.
I could see all kinds of things that I had missed when I was stuck in my bed. I could feel the breeze swirling around me; I could see hummingbirds buzzing around a tree branch above the roof. I didn't realize it until later, but it was the first time I had been outside in two years.
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My New York Times Essay is on a Podcast
It seemed like something that could easily sound inauthentic or fake, the thought of which made me cringe, but in the end he not only did justice to my writing, he managed to accurately convey the struggle of me trying to speak.
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The Time I Bought a $2,000 Coffee Mug
It was a bit demoralizing to inflict such a price on my body for a tiny bit of normalcy -- a few minutes of conversation. But there is something truly magical about making a plan, carrying it out, and the outcome proving to be very close to how you envisioned it.
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Netflix and Hill: The True Story Behind “Afflicted”
You can’t dupe a person’s family into saying he’s a hypochondriac and expect him to just be happy that the film is “raising awareness.”
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Going Anti-Viral
I feel like I should be thankful for every moment that I'm not too miserable to concentrate on my own thoughts. And I am! I'm incredibly grateful, but that mindfulness is hard to sustain when things don't get better.
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Don’t do it for The Gram
A few years ago, when I was still on my feet walking the streets, I saw someone stop in the middle of the road and take a selfie. I remember giving a sardonic smile, shaking my head, and waiting for the sound of tires screeching on asphalt. This, of course, was before stopping traffic to... Continue Reading →
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My Way
I eventually snap out of it and remember: Oh hey, there's another person here, someone helping me and we're supposed to be working together. But I don't want to work together, not on things I've done alone my entire life ...
