Living

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -- Winston Churchill I am ready to put away the virus and face the...

Eight years ago, I had my first big flare in my feet. It came from nowhere. It was Summer, I was enjoying my life in London. I had a busy...

Butterflies are one of my favorite things in life. Their particular beauty and grace makes it impossible to look away. And they seem to magically appear out of nowhere. It’s...

One thing that has remained a constant throughout decline of my health these last two years is this: the looming pressure to get better. With chronic illnesses, hearing the term...

How many of you wish more people around you would understand? How many of you wish living in this world, as a chronically ill person, with an invisible illness, would...

With something like ankylosing spondylitis, there are so many physical effects of the condition that it’s sometimes easy to overlook the mental effects that it also brings. One of the...

My advocating journey began in October 2020 with a fundraiser. A year later I continue to advocate every day. It was the best decision I have ever made. It changed my...

Over the past few years, I've learned a lot about what it means to have ankylosing spondylitis. When I was first diagnosed, I lived in this hazy fever dream. I...

You know how living with ankylosing spondylitis can feel like speaking a language that only you understand? It can be really isolating and frustrating, even when other make a concerted...

I hate finding out that somebody wasn’t actually my friend. It’s painful and embarrassing, especially when the evidence was plain for me to see all along. Betrayal can be confirmed...

Getting diagnosed with AS really took a massive hit on my career. Before my spine started to act up, I was enjoying life working as a teacher in China. Then...

The other day a friend sent me a poem and one line really stuck out to me. It said, “Growing inside of a body that I no longer call my...

This article will be about my self-care plan. I always thought self-care was just taking baths, going for a walk and lighting candles to relax. After some research, I learned that there...

I have been back on Humira for 6 months now, which is the same drug that had put me into remission for 8 years. Of course, I was not assuming...

The COVID-19 pandemic as well as my spondyloarthritis (SpA) have tossed me in so many directions over the past 2 to 3 years - fear, panic, fatigue. I feel at...

Anybody reading this already knows that arthritis is serious. It hurts. It burns. It stops people in their tracks with brain fog, stiffness, reduced range of motion, and fatigue. In...

Next month marks 14 years since Keegan and I got together. I remember it very fondly. We were 17-years-old and mutual friends were trying to get us to date. Keegan...

There’s a huge shift happening right now in on the work scene, with employees demanding more in terms of benefits, pay, and work flexibility. One of the changes I’m seeing...

My rheumatologist of the last fifteen or so years is retiring. Talk about striking fear in the heart of a long-term patient. Wow, that is not great news. I know...

When I was diagnosed with AS, I was also diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. A double whammy. I grew to understand that dietary changes and certain diets could have the potential...