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Posts tagged with “disease”

The Powerful Realizations That Helped Me Heal from Chronic Illness

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“No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do.” ~Dr. Paul David Tripp

Living with chronic illness can seem like an insurmountable challenge. I felt completely broken and helpless. Amidst my tumultuous journey, I found that mindset is critical to restore vitality.

For years I dealt with debilitating fatigue, severe joint pain, vertigo, loss of balance, and sleepless nights. I pleaded for help over and over, usually in tears. Oftentimes, people blamed my physical symptoms on my mental health. “You need to get more sleep.” “You are probably …

6 Life Lessons from Working with Children Facing Life-Threatening Illnesses

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“There is beauty to be found in the pain. Life is brutal, but it’s also beautiful. Life is Brutiful.” ~Glennon Doyle

For four years, I had the honor and privilege of working with children and families in a hospital setting, with most of my time spent in the hematology/oncology department.

My role as a certified child life specialist was to help prevent and alleviate the stress and trauma of the hospital experience utilizing developmentally appropriate preparation, education, and play. Or at least that’s the “elevator pitch” I would provide during small talk and to casual acquaintances at parties.

The truth …

Releasing Fascia: A Simple Way to Reduce Tension, Pain, and Disease

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“Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live.” ~Jim Rohn

I hear this happens to so many, but when it happens to you, it’s unsettling. I didn’t know what was going on with me, and I wasn’t getting any satisfying answers either.

Most days were good, and I felt fine and went about my regular routine wearing my many hats: mother of two young kids, human mom to three fur babies, a household-manager-of-all-the-things and full-time dental hygienist. And then out of the blue, it could hit me like a ton of bricks… the backache, neck …

How I Found Hope in my Father’s Terminal Cancer

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“Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty, even in times of greatest distress.” ~Milan Kundera

When my father received a terminal cancer diagnosis, I went through a wave of different emotions. Fear, anger, sadness. It opened a completely new dictionary that I had not had access to before. A realm of experiences, thoughts, and emotions that lie at the very bedrock of human life was suddenly revealed to me.

After the initial horror and dread at hearing the news had subsided, I was surprised to find a new sense of meaning and …

Looking Back: The Silver Linings of the Pandemic and Why I’m Grateful

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“You gotta look for the good in the bad, the happy in the sad, the gain in your pain, and what makes you grateful, not hateful.” ~Karen Salmansohn

The 2010 decade was difficult for me. Hardly a year went by without someone close to me passing away.

When the tragic decade started, I was in the midst of my residency training and free time was a luxury I did not have. When I graduated and became an attending physician, I was too busy caring for patients on my own to take a break.

In 2018, my world was shattered …

How I Learned the Power of Letting Go After My Father Developed Dementia

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“There is beauty in everything, even in silence and darkness.” ~Helen Keller

When I was eleven years old, I would force myself to stay awake until the wee hours of the morning.

I was severely anorexic at a time when eating disorders were considered an “inconvenience” you brought on yourself. Anorexia was dismissed as a rich, white girl’s disease (although we were certainly not rich)—a disease that was easily curable with a prescription for a chocolate cake.

Although my emaciated body was a dead giveaway of my condition, it was school that noticed the change in me first. My once …

5 Life Lessons from a Brain Tumor That Could Have Killed Me

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“Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender.” ~Danielle Orner

I was slumped against a wall at Oxford Circus Station early one Sunday evening when an irritated male voice suddenly barked, “MOVE!”

Moments beforehand, I had lost my vision.

Without conscious thought, I muttered, “RUDE!” and staggered off without clearly seeing where I was going.

It was only months later, on retracing my steps at Oxford Circus, that I realized I’d been blocking his view of some street art.

I’d allowed a guy to bully me …

The Circle of Love: How I Paid It Forward After My Mom’s Death

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“If you feel like you’re losing everything, remember that trees lose their leaves every year and they still stand tall and wait for better days to come.” ~Unknown

Years ago, I was a young housewife, raising two children, and still practically a child myself. When my mother fell ill, we realized it was chronic and I felt the blow.

Mom had been my closest friend and supporter throughout my entire life. I was still her baby, even though I had babies of my own. And it was a point of pride with me.

As Mom gradually diminished into a shell …

How To Keep Moving Forward When You Feel Like Shutting Down

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“I can’t believe what I’m managing to get through.” ~Frank Bruni

My worst fear was inflicted upon me three months ago: a cancer diagnosis—non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Out of nowhere!

Truth be told though, lots of awful things that happen to us come suddenly out of nowhere—a car accident, suicide, heart attack, and yes, a diagnostic finding. We’re stopped in our tracks, seemingly paralyzed as we go into shock and dissociative mode.

My world as I knew it stopped. It became enclosed in the universe of illness—tiny and limited. I became one-dimensional—a sick patient.

And I went into shock. To the …

What Is Stress-Induced Illness? How Trauma Can Cause Physical Pain

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“Wisdom is merely the movement from fighting life to embracing it.” ~Rasheed Ogunlaru

Three years ago, I fell into the blind spot of medicine: America’s unknown epidemic.

After numerous tests, scans, scopes, and too many doctors to count, modern medicine could not find anything seriously wrong with me. I also consented to have my gallbladder removed. My first and only surgery at age forty, an “experiment” of sorts.

Six months into the worst nightmare of my life, my spiraling health started to take a huge toll on me physically, mentally, and emotionally. I didn’t want to live anymore, but …

How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

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“Have a little faith in your ability to handle whatever’s coming down the road. Believe that you have the strength and resourcefulness required to tackle whatever challenges come your way. And know that you always have the capacity to make the best of anything. Even if you didn’t want it or ask for it, even if it seems scary or hard or unfair, you can make something good of any loss or hardship. You can learn from it, grow from it, help others through it, and maybe even thrive because of it. The future is unknown, but you can know …

4 Ways to Save Your Sanity When Life Gets Hard and Overwhelming

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“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” ~Jon Kabat Zinn

In December of 2020, we noticed Mom’s speech seemed difficult. Like she had stuffed cotton balls in her mouth, and someone was restraining her jaw from moving. We asked her about it, she said it was nothing.

We hadn’t seen each other since we got together over the holidays. On New Year’s Day 2020, we clinked glasses filled with sparkling wine and shared bold predictions about how this was going to be our best year yet (spoiler alert, it wasn’t).

With every passing week and conversation, …

The Beauty in Her Baldness: Why My Mother Was Still Radiant with Cancer

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“Beauty doesn’t come from physical perfection. It comes from the light in our eyes, the spark in our hearts, and the radiance we exude when we’re comfortable enough in our skin to focus less on how we look and more on how we love.” ~Lori Deschene

For as long as I can remember, my mom had long shiny silky black hair down to her knees. It was magical in the way that it attracted people and inspired curiosity and connection.

Everywhere we went, strangers approached her, usually timidly at first with a brief compliment, and then, after receiving her signature …

Why Fibromyalgia Is the Greatest Gift of My Life

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“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” ~Rumi

TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains discussions of difficult topics, including suicidal depression and a fatal car accident.

I’ve always been an active, athletic person. In my twenties I was huge in tennis, squash, and swimming, and I began every morning with an intense workout that cleared my head and let me confront the day’s challenges with a relaxed, positive attitude. So, when I started experiencing mysterious pains and fatigue that didn’t go away no matter how much sleep I got, my life was turned upside down.

After two years …

How I Overcame My Chronic Digestive Issues by Learning to Breathe Right

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“If you know the art of deep breathing, you have the strength, wisdom and courage of ten tigers.” ~Chinese adage

Let me share a little secret: I started healing from decades of debilitating chronic digestive issues when I stopped looking for the next best solution and trying to heal. Instead, I did nothing. And I took a breath.

Let’s start at the beginning. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (an irritable bowel disease) at the age of eighteen, which would have marked the beginning of my oh-so-anticipated adult life, but instead, I thought my life was over.

I had every …

How I Get Through Hard Times Using Curiosity, Compassion, and Challenge

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“Sometimes the worst things that happen in our lives put us on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.” ~Unknown

Until I was thirty-seven, I thought I’d led a pretty charmed life: I had a supportive family and good friends, I’d done well academically, always got the jobs I’d applied for, and met and married the perfect man for me.

In 2013, when I was thirty-five weeks pregnant with my second child, I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. My baby was induced at thirty-seven weeks, and my chemo started ten days later. In …

How Beating Cancer Helped Me Stop Being a People-Pleaser

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“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chadron

The hardest part of hearing the words, “I’m sorry, but you have cancer” at the age of thirty was knowing I had to tell my mother and my husband.

Why?

Not because I was afraid of their reaction, although it would be especially heightened since my father had died of cancer three years prior, but because I was going to take on a role I had never experienced before: a patient.

For me, being a patient equaled being dependent. Someone who was needy and …

How I Overcame My Debilitating Gut Issues by Digesting My Emotions

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“I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.” ~Louise Hay

Here’s my secret: In order to fully heal over a decade of debilitating digestive disorders, I had to stop trying to heal. Instead, I had to do nothing. What, do nothing? Yes, that’s exactly right—I had to let go of the search for the perfect cure. Let me explain.

I developed chronic gut problems at age fourteen—such a precious age! After being dismissed by doctors (“It’s all in your head; it’s a girl problem”), overprescribed antibiotics for years on end, or just given hopelessly …

How a Cancer Misdiagnosis Helped Me Face and Heal from Health Anxiety

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“Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming.” ~Robert Tew

“I have bad news. I am sorry. You have cancer.”

Sitting in the cold, clinical doctor’s office on a snowy, cloudy January day in Chicago, I was six months postpartum with my daughter, and I felt like I had woken up in a nightmare.

My husband had gone to work that day when I was supposed to have my stitches removed after the laparoscopic surgery to remove a large cyst, so I was alone with my daughter.

When Dr. Foley entered the room, I took one …

What Helps Me When I Feel Down About My Chronic Illness

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“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.

A few months back, before the pandemic upended life for all of us, I went through one of those times when I could do nothing but sit at home and rest for my health’s sake.

I’d recently had another one of my surgeries; I was born with a genetic condition called vascular malformation, which grew and spread quite rapidly on my left cheek and into the mouth during my childhood. It’s the reason I’ve been paying visits to operation theaters for all …