Viewing: Chronic Life
May 8, 2017
5 Tips for Working While Chronically Ill
Before we go any further if you have a chronic illness and you’re working I want to applaud you. Chronic illness travels with us wherever we go. It doesn’t care about deadlines or dreams or unreasonable bosses. So if you’re still working, you’re clearly handling life like a boss. On the flip side, if you came to a point where you... Read morePosted in Chronic Life, Disability | By Stacey Philpot
May 4, 2017
When You Aren’t Sure You Can Live Like This
Like a bird I soared, high above the clouds, soaking in the sun, inhaling the sheer goodness of life. I breathed in possibilities and exhaled delight. Surely, the sun was a more golden hue than it had ever been before. Was that a lullaby of babies laughing I heard? All was right with the world. And then I plummeted to... Read morePosted in Chronic Life, Coping 101, Rare Disease | By Stacey Philpot
May 1, 2017
5 Signs You’re Stronger Than You Think
You’re still here. There’s been ample opportunity to call it, to throw in the towel, declare it all “too much,” and yet you don’t. Every day your feet hit the floor, and you go at it again. Oh, I’m sure you make plenty of morbid jokes about quitting, changing your name, your job, your identity and moving to Guam, but... Read morePosted in Chronic Life, Community | By Stacey Philpot
April 17, 2017
When It Feels like the Whole World Is Clueless
When I was young and brave or stupid, you decide, I flew to Dallas for Thanksgiving to visit family just as I transitioned into my second trimester of pregnancy. It was my first, and I was violently ill most of the time. If memory serves me correctly, I was twenty-one years old, sixteen weeks pregnant and signed up for a... Read morePosted in Chronic Life, Parenting and Chronic Illness | By Stacey Philpot
April 10, 2017
When Chronic Illness Leaves You in the Darkness
One minute you sit within the light. Comfort and companionship surround you. Perhaps, it’s a Friday night tradition, hosting dinner at your house, your closest friends laughing and dining together. The climate of the room adds to the perfection of the night. It’s cool, but not too cool, a welcome reprieve from the punishing heat outside. The food and fellowship... Read morePosted in chronic illness; support, Chronic Life, Coping | By Stacey Philpot
April 6, 2017
What You Can Do Right Now to Feel Better
Dealing with a chronic illness is not easy. Instead, it is something that is hard to cope with and understand. With an illness, people sometimes get stuck in the past. They start thinking about getting back to their previous lives or wish they were just ‘normal’ again. Alternatively, people will start to future trip or worry extensively. However, what happens,... Read morePosted in Chronic Life, Gratitude | By Stacey Philpot
April 3, 2017
The Beauty of the Story Your Life Is Telling
My oldest offspring is seventeen, at the cusp of adulthood. He has strong passions and gifting’s, an uncanny ability to cultivate puns and an emotional maturity, which still catches me off guard with frightening regularity. Perhaps, it is because the man he’ll soon be now stands before me with far more frequency than the boy he once was. Scarier still,... Read morePosted in Chronic Life, Faith | By Stacey Philpot
March 30, 2017
But I Want What You Have- the Compassion Quandary
MS, TN & chronic migraines cause me a wide variety of symptoms. Like, I could be here all day listing them. Among my symptoms are: numbness, tingling, facial pain, muscle spasms, limb weakness, dizziness and fainting. This is every day. As in multiple parts of my body can have all kinds of chaos going on, all at once, even. Try... Read morePosted in Anger, Chronic illness and relationships, Chronic Life | By Stacey Philpot
March 26, 2017
The Five Most Fabulous Moments in France and England
The Side Eye– Meet Andrea. Andrea made my entire trip across the pond possible by opening her beautiful home up to me. She even sanitized everything for me prior to my arrival to minimize sickness and infection. She never stopped asking, “Do you have everything you need?” Upon my arrival, I found products for disinfecting on the shelf in my... Read morePosted in Chronic Life, Travel, Travel and Chronic Illness | By Stacey Philpot
March 16, 2017
What Lent Taught Me About Chronic Illness
I grew up in a church that didn’t celebrate Lent. We were big on Christmas. BIG. Like, goody-bags-for-all-the-kids-and-real-animals-in-the-Christmas-pageant big. Lent was something my Catholic grandmother participated in, and to be honest, we all thought she was kinda weird. She’d fast and pray and take extra time after mass to kneel and light a candle. As a young girl, I couldn’t... Read morePosted in Chronic Life, Faith | By Stacey Philpot