Essay: A Day in the Woods

The day started early for me. When I awoke at 7:15, my husband and three of our seven dogs had already gone for a golf cart run around our farm. Putting on my red flannel housecoat, I poured my coffee and went outside to greet them. Here they came, lickity-split, so excited to see me. After such

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Essay: A Spoonie “Call to Arms”

We are at odds with an indomitable foe of the worst kind. One that challenges us with callous indifference and leaves us struggling while the rest of the world looks on unknowingly. It makes us question our toughness and our resolve. It forces us to make difficult decisions in which, oftentimes, non

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Personal Essay: The Fight with Fibro.

Sometimes I think those of us with Fibromyalgia are considered a special brand of crazy, among invisible diseases. People can understand a food allergy, auto-immune specific issues, even something that they may not have heard of, but is well documented like SLE. People with Fibro seem to have a repu

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Personal Essay: It’s okay not to smile.

When you suffer from an illness it’s hard to be upbeat all the time. One can’t always smile through the pain or think mind over matter will move a mountain (or even the trash to outside the door). It’s a sad part of life no one ever wants to talk about. The truth is when your joints hurt and y

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Thoughts on Aging

The first thing out of my mouth most mornings is usually some sort of multi- syllabic utterance such as marghblamhaba which can be loosely translated into many phrases such as, Oy vay!, Mon Dieu!, Dear Lord!, or What???, depending on your cultural and religious preferences. My thoughts quickly go to

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The Power of Silly!

Those of us who live with a chronic illness, deal with a lot of difficult emotions. I often find myself with feelings like frustration,boredom, loneliness, sadness, etc. For me, these emotions become their strongest at night, when I usually cannot sleep or go out. My biggest coping skills- going out

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Making The Best Of Hard Situations During The Holidays

I always tend to write about what's going on in my life, often as a way of working through situations for myself. When I sat down to write this article, thinking in terms of the holidays, the only thing I could think of was what I am having to do - make the best of a very difficult situation that ju

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New Ways to Motivate your Life: A guide for the rest of us.

Ever wake up, pull on your jogging shoes and think about just not running that day? Chances are not, since running is hard with a cane or crutches, or everyday pain. So chances are most of that sugary motivational stuff out there is simply not for you. Here are some more practical things most of us

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The Dreaded Grocery Store: Tips on saving time and energy while grocery shopping

Out of all the areas my illness kills the joy for-grocery shopping is number one on the top ten list! Just the mere thought of grocery shopping makes me want to crawl into bed and declare myself on a fast! I simply cannot stand grocery stores. The very bright, awful lights hurt my eyes. The sensor

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Redefining The “Bad Month”

A good friend of mine just asked in an email whether, for those of us fighting chronic diseases, "Is there EVER a good month?" Boy did that make me think... IS there? Doing a fast rewind of my last 6 months I realized that I have been postponing lots of things, cancelling activities, failing to k

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