Terminology Tuesday: morbidity and comorbidity vs mortality

When I started to really do research into my disease several years ago, I came across the term ‘morbidity.’ It’s a bit of a shocking word, or at least was to me, due to how often it was associated with mortality. I thought for sure that morbidity meant something terrible.

Then I saw comorbidity and freaked out more.

Morbidity really just means the state of being ill due to disease. It can be used to describe a population (“SJIA patients have a higher rate of morbidity and mortality when compared to normal children their age”) or to one person alone (“Kirsten’s morbidity rose throughout college, finally coming to a head her senior year”).

Comorbidity is where two or more illnesses that can cause morbidity exist, like how those with rheumatic diseases often also have fibromyalgia.

Most of us know what mortality means… It is being mortal, being able to die or be killed.

In studies on many rheumatic diseases, morbidity and mortality are often listed together. This can be a way to generalize that the population with a certain disease like SJIA tend to have higher rates of death or disability from their disease or related complications.

Want to learn more medical terms? Join me on my MedX journey Sept 24-27! I’ll be live tweeting the whole time so hit me up@kirstie_schultz, catch the live streams at the Medicine X website, and join in the conversations using the tag #MedX.


Dear Anakinra/Kineret, I love you

I did labs this morning and was a little afraid that my blood tests wouldn’t reflect how well I’ve been feeling…

But my sed rate IS FREAKING SIX.

It went from 40 to 6!

WTF.

I switched rheumatologists so that I could get on kineret. I knew that, eventually, this drug would be my goal. It has helped SO MANY people with SJIA and periodic fever syndrome and other autoinflammatory diseases.

I switched rheumatologists because my old one didn’t want to use this drug. The injection site reactions were too big of a problem and it didn’t help other patients they’d had on it – other patients who weren’t SJIA or autoinflammatory btw. They were treating me as if I had a different JIA type.

If it was just between oligo and polyarticular, that would be one thing. The same drugs for the most part are used. Systemic is a different beast. MTX doesn’t generally work for us and the TNF drugs only buy time.

I did see minor improvements when I was on Humira & Enbrel, but they both quickly quit working. The same with Cimzia. You can kind of see that here. The dip at the end of June 2012 was when I was on Enbrel and Arava, which I had to stop due to liver damage… and that’s where we see the elevation in late 2012.

I had a rough go with some dinosaur bites injection site reactions during the second and third weeks of the injections, but they have cleared up amazingly quickly!

This is all so surreal. I cried for a good while the other night because I noticed, while fidgeting with my toes, that they were so malleable. Turns out they weren’t swollen for the first time in 22 years! They were normal toes!

NORMAL

I had a similar moment with my ankle on the same foot.

And I even wore wedges the other day – five years to the day that I got my handicapped placard and said I give up (not that getting a placard means that – I literally put “I give up Arthur. You win.” on facebook).

My new rheumatologist is amazing. I love her so much, not just for this but for really being a partner in my care and a friend.

I can’t help but wonder though how many more drugs I would’ve failed with my old rheumy before they considered this. I wonder why I wasn’t being treated with the right drugs. I wonder if it would be wrong (I know it would) to send them a message about how much better I’m doing now.

I’m so glad I stood up for myself. I’m so glad I had other ePatients telling me to be my own advocate. I’m so glad I had support to make all the changes I’ve made in my life in the last two years. I believe all these changes have gotten me to this moment – so close to giving Arthur the KO.

I’m going to go back to crying in my office.

Kineret.
Anakinra.
Lovely little daily shot.
I fucking love you.
Please stay working.
Get me into remission.
Make me better.

 

The 2015 Juvenile Arthritis Conference

It seems like every conference or gathering I go to brings me new ideas and thoughts to raise more awareness of arthritis. The JA conference was no different.

Check in at the hotel was just a little bit busy, but that’s bound to happen when you have 1700+ people! 1100 of us were first-timers which is a big part of why they have the conference set up this way for next year…

How exciting is that?!

My first order of business was to run down and snag my swag bag before heading over to the young adult opening session.

The opening night dinner was the next event, and the last that I went to for the night even though there was a young adult networking session.

The opening dinner was great with plenty of gluten free foods. We heard from AF CEO Ann Palmer, JA conference chair for the year and SJIA mom Rochelle Lentini, and others. Probably my most favorite part of the night was when Ana Villafañe talked and performed for us.

One of the things that I loved about the whole conference was how much more of a focus on SJIA there seemed to be compared to past events. SJIA is rare, so I get that many may not feel it as prudent to discuss, but it was great. I say this because Ana has SJIA. Despite her illness issues, she’s debuting on BROADWAY in November in On Your Feet, a musical about Gloria Estefan and her family.

Instead of hitting the YA networking session, T and I hit the pool – something that surprisingly we hadn’t done all trip yet! It was a wonderful way to rest.

The next day started at nine with a panel of amazing people – Ana, Todd Peck (NASCAR driver), and juvenile/adult rheumatologist Dr. Sandra Pagnussat.

All three of these amazing people have fought hard to become who they are today. They each went through difficult periods in their lives and how they made it through.

One of the nice things about being in the YA category is that I could attend the sessions meant for parents and caregivers… even though they couldn’t attend our sessions. For the next few sessions of the day, I was able to pop out and enjoy some SJIA and very science-driven sessions.

The first session I attended was on diseases like SJIA that are autoinflammatory in nature instead of autoimmune. Perhaps the biggest thing I learned in this session was that adolescent boys are more likely to have one SJIA flare and be done with it. If you have five years or more of active disease, it’s likely you will deal with it the rest of your life. The good thing, though, is that less than 50% of cases have severe or life-threatening complications… how sad is that what slightly less than half is good news?

Dr. Elder also talked a bit about Macrophage Activation Syndrome, or MAS, and how it often isn’t recognized right away due to the many diseases it mimics like hepatitis. It’s estimated that about 10% of SJIA patients will have overt MAS but that 30-40% will have symptoms of MAS without it being full blown. She explained the difference between autoinflammatory and autoimmune, which I hope to cover in a later post.

Interleukin (IL) 1 Beta, which Ilaris and Kineret treat, is responsible for many of the systemic features including rash. It’s also the major cytokine responsible for septic shock, which is what Kineret was first developed to treat but it failed to do so. IL-6 is responsible for maintaining many of the arthritic features including later osteoporosis and growth retardation. IL-18 is responsible for MAS and can possibly be used as a biomarker for SJIA in the future.

Something interesting that I found was that, in theory, you’re not supposed to consider a diagnosis of SJIA if the patient or his/her immediate family members have psoriasis. This is supposed to be consider Psoriatic Arthritis. I was a little shocked honestly, as I have psoriasis and SJIA, but Dr. Elder explained that there are outliers and both can exist in one patient. It’s just more rare because of the autoinflammatory and autoimmune differences. You don’t often see a person who has issues in both their innate and adaptive immune systems.

Novartis, the company that makes Ilaris, was kind enough to host a SJIA lunch Friday. I ended up at a table with the Sloan family and the Burgos family… whose little guy kept flirting with me throughout the rest of the conference.

I’ve developed baby fever Rafael!

I also was able to meet Leah Bush and Amanda Hendrix, two SJIA moms that I just LOVE. Honestly they’re a big part of why I blog and it was so nice to be able to give them some hugs and say hey.

The lunch itself was great. They displayed some amazing pictures from the Picture Your Best Day with SJIA project and talked about the new Know SJIA website as a joint venture between Novartis and the Arthritis Foundation. The website has some great resources including this handy SJIA symptom tracker.

The next parental session I crashed was Genetics 101 with Dr. Troy Torgerson from Seattle. It was more focused on the autoimmune side than the autoinflammatory side, but was very interesting. One of my favorite quotes from this presentation was “we’re all mutants.” There was something so comforting in knowing all of our DNA is messed up in different ways, and to have a pediatric rheumatologist who is also an immunologist kind of say that this doesn’t make us that different.

With me being a big of a science nerd, I LOVED this presentation. It was nice that I knew about some of it beforehand because it helped me to grasp some of the other issues he discussed.

The next session was led by Shelly Baer, Robert Hernandez, and Kevin Purcell (founder of Arthritis Introspective) on self-esteem and body image – “I’m sexy and YOU know it!” It, like many of the other YA sessions, was really a forum to bring up issues we had. It was interesting sitting in there and really realizing how far I have come in the last two years on self love and self care. I had multiple things I liked about myself and others were struggling to find just one.

It both made me proud of myself and show compassion towards others. It’s so hard to live with this disease as a young person, dealing with societal ideals of beauty when we can’t meet them.

That night the young adults hung out by the pool and took some selfies!

And I actually wore my two piece in front of other people! AND GOT COMPLIMENTED!

It’s been a while.

The next morning started off with an awards session, followed by a conversation on the new partnership between the AF and CARRA (the childhood arthritis and rheumatology research alliance).

I was starting to feel a little beat so I had to take up a lot of room.

The cool thing about CARRA is that it started out as a group of pediatric rheumatologists and researchers coming together to see what they could do to help these sick kiddos. We have all these great drugs, but more are coming down the pipeline. The registry that CARRA has developed can help to track information better and utilize patient information, deidentified of course, to bring more change for the better.

It’s an amazing way to promote patient engagement in research, which is something we all should be interested in.

The most moving part of the morning opener was when Vincent Del Gaizo got up to speak about his involvement with CARRA as a parent of a SJIA patient. He discussed his son’s difficult case and the changes in how well he’s doing now.

The next awesome presentation was about relationships. We heard from Dr. P (from the opening YA panel), Jeremy and Renee Forsyth, and George and Joy Ross. We heard about their stories and then it, again, turned into a very open panel. We discussed topics like disclosure, where I brought up telling T on my first date and how he’s always seen it as a part of me, communication, and recommitting to each other daily.

During our lunch break, I stopped by the Novartis table to ask about Ilaris and the different patient assistance programs available. Apparently they will even help you fight to get the drug put on your insurance company’s formulary! How cool is that?

T and I enjoyed some food truck goodies and I headed off to the next session on transition.

I was a little disappointed in that I heard there were supposed to be several people on this panel, but at the end we only had two – Catherine Miney and Janet Hess, PhD, MPHS, CHES. Janet helped to standardize the transition to adulthood across the state of Florida, which I’m sure wasn’t easy to do!

It was a very open discussion, and I wound up contributing to a lot of the answers with new ideas on how to handle what some of these amazing people were dealing with.

After sharing information on some of the apps I enjoy like Arthritis Power, I headed up to my room. There was another session to go but I was just wiped out and I needed to rest. Theron and I took a short nap and then went out for some late night barbecue before working on packing up.

In the morning we stopped by the walk & jungle bell run expo, where we ran into some of my favorite people like Tory who runs Mariah’s Movers. Then I ran into AF CEO Ann Palmer…

I bugged her for a minute to thank her for the change she’s brought to the organization because, honestly, this was a lot better than I thought it would be. Apparently she’s heard of me? Yikes!

We headed over to the hope tree next where we saw some of the cutest hopes, and I put up my own that no one else would have to lose a loved one to JA.

The YA program did their wrap up.

And then we heard from Joy Ross at the general closing.

They announced my friend Colleen Ryan as the next conference host and that we’d have TWO to look forward to!

The conference itself was so amazing. There were so many different sessions to chose from. The hotel was perfect, though sometimes the signage could’ve been better. The food was great and gluten-free friendly. The people I met were amazing and the changes on the way will make the AF into what I’ve felt I wanted it to be, at least for the young adults – a way to shape us into advocacy leaders, a way to get us more involved, and a way to shine despite our illnesses.

My time in Florida was already amazing, from meeting my friend Emily to finally going to Harry Potter world to enjoyed feeding giraffes at Busch Gardens to sitting on the beach and relaxing. I didn’t have time to hit up Disney, but that just means I’ll be back Florida. You better be ready for me!

There are SO many more recaps out there, including the official AF ones. You can also snag presentations and materials from the conference here.

Wanna see me live-tweet at a conference? You can! Join me on my MedX journey Sept 24-27! I’ll be live tweeting the whole time so hit me up@kirstie_schultz, catch the live streams at the Medicine X website, and join in the conversations using the tag #MedX.

 

How chronic illness is a bit like Jurassic Park

When you’re first diagnosed, you think that you can handle anything still. Instead of taking advice to be still and rest, you try to attack things head on. You have something to prove to yourself.

But then you learn what it’s really like from Mr. DNA.

Having this thing that is so intent on causing damage is scary, even if it’s just breathing into the glass.

Most of the rest of the time, I think we’re more like the dinosaurs than the humans… When you learn about what the illness can do, you get into attack mode.

You’ll start on a medication and feel great.

But then…

You feel like you’re being torn apart…

And you quickly realize you need to move to a different medicine because you wake up too stiff to move. But you decide maybe the medicine is what’s making you sick, so instead you decide to go all natural…

Against your doctor’s thoughts…

You think things are going well until the humidity changes.

And you’re fucked again… So you go back to your doctor.

You learn about all the medicines you can take. You read the side effects and what these drugs are made of. You pick one and start running with it.

You don’t get too scared when you have a minor flare up.

There ends up being a pretty good fight between you and this flare. Luckily your monster friend prednisone is here to help.

You beat it.

You know the cycle will likely continue. You’ll have to gear up for more changes and future fights.

For now, you’ll give yourself a break on the bad times, enjoying the good times maybe a little too much.

 

Therapeutic Thursday: link roundup

Like with chronic physical illnesses, mental illnesses bring up questions of disclosure. For one, should you tell your boss? The author of this article says yes.

If you love someone with depression or anxiety, you should definitely check out these 11 ways to be an effective partner.

My spoon photo project is ongoing. I can only hope that it can have as much of an impact as this project on what it’s like to live with depression.

Also I hope that you’ll join me on my MedX journey Sept 24-27! I’ll be live tweeting the whole time so hit me up@kirstie_schultz, catch the live streams at the Medicine X website, and join in the conversations using the tag #MedX.

Terminology Tuesday: acute vs chronic

When you hear acute and chronic what are the first things that come to mind?

Most people think of math when they think acute and of pot when they think of chronic.

Quite simply. acute means short-term and chronic mean long-term in the medical world.

An acute illness would be one that ends after a while. The flu or a cold are great examples. Breaking your leg or similar things are more long-term but still considered acute for the most part.

A chronic illness is one that is recurrent or long-term – essentially a life-long illness. Juvenile arthritis and Still’s disease are examples of this.

Some people lump certain types of cancers in with long-term or chronic illness, like breast cancer. This is definitely fine I think. On the other hand, some people lump some chronic illnesses like Still’s in with terminal illness. While it is likely that my disease will kill me in one way or another, I prefer not to look at it like this.

Arthur, to me, is a lifelong friend. I know that sounds odd, but it is what it is. He’s dealing with me, which isn’t easy either.

T minus 37 days and counting to #MedX

(I’ve been watching a lot of From the Earth to the Moon. Since the tagline for MedX in the past has been about igniting change, I figured a countdown-themed post would be awesome, so put on your helmet and strap in for a ride!)

 

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In 2013, I vaguely remember hearing that Britt ‘Hurt Blogger‘ Johnson had gotten involved in this weird thing called MedX.

I didn’t really know what it was, but as time went by, I learned more and more about it, including that there were some awesome people attending with great ideas towards changing the future of healthcare.

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In 2014, I wound up with a flare the weekend MedX happened, allowing me to basically fully participate in the online portions of the conference. I had already taken a MOOC via Stanford on patient engagement and was excited to catch any part of the conference I could. Thanks to my flare, I was able to watch some of my favorite people and friends give amazing talks about their experiences with illness and issues that need to be resolved.

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As I watched the live stream and participated in the twitter feed, I was able to really see the goal of MedX firsthand – to bring all stakeholders in healthcare together to make changes for the better. I was able to see the passion that everyone had for these changes, and it helped to reignite my spark which had been lost in the day-to-day health issues.

See, in 2012, my close friend Laura of Still’s Life passed away due to our shared disease. I also had recently had to change jobs and stop graduate school due to my illnesses. I had become engaged and so I threw everything positive I had into wedding planning to ignore my depression.

It wasn’t the best idea but my wedding in August of 2014 turned out awesome, so all’s well that ends well!

With the wedding out of the way and all this extra time on my hands, watching the live stream was exactly what I needed. It threw me head first back into the advocacy world with more excitement and ambitions for the future than before.

7

I decided to apply to attend MedX in person – and I got selected! I got the news over Thanksgiving weekend – and on the same day I heard about my new job – all while spending my first holiday with my father’s family.

It was intense.

6

This point in a NASA countdown explains my life right now:

Just prior to this moment, if everything is functioning as it should, the command will be given to start the space shuttle’s main engines. Beginning at the T-minus 6 second mark, each of the three main engines will be ignited and roar to life.

When I was selected to go, I ramped up everything I was doing in my life to focus on one goal – changing the future of healthcare. I attended other conferences this year, started a new administration job in pediatrics, and will start school shortly to work towards my MS in health care administration with a goal of being a patient advocate due to my focus on advocacy and navigation in the health care system.

And I have my new CreakyJoints blog on sex and relationships.

I’m really getting around, pun intended.

5

I was a little nervous about going to MedX. I’ve worked really hard in the last seven years on advocacy and awareness, but am I ready for this? I mean, getting to meet a ton of people I look up to all at once could be a little overwhelming. Luckily, I was able to meeting Britt and Kenzie at the Arthritis Introspective National Gathering in May. And then I was able to head to the JA conference in July. I didn’t meet any MedXers there, but I learned a little more about myself as far as why I keep fighting.

4

I physically have everything I need for MedX now – a better carry-on bag, all sorts of braces and wraps, and some nicer clothes so I look professional. My flight is booked, with some time set aside to spend with my sister. I’m ready for some comfy weather and that Cali sun.

Mentally I’m still not sure I’m prepared.

3

At five weeks out, I’ve started to look at my schedule which is tricky. What in the world am I going to do about all these amazing sessions?

I have a time turner on my keys, but I’m sadly unsure that it’ll work.

2

A while back I was questioning the validity of having me attend this conference. How in the world am I possibly qualified? Am I enough of a patient? Am I well enough to attend?

Seeing all the steps I’ve taken in the last two years to improve not only my life but the lives of others, I think that feeling has dissipated… especially since my new biologic has killed my brain fog. I feel like I have my life together, and that’s awesome.

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What am I most looking forward to at MedX? It’s hard to put into words.

I’m ready to bring back information for the doctors I work with, just as the head of our department is excited to hear about it. They could use some of the information for sure.

I’m excited to bring back information to my new rheumatologist, who is beyond stoked that I’m going. She’s super into patient engagement and shared-decision making, and I love her.

I’m happy I can reconnect with people I’ve met in person like Britt and Kenzie, and to meet others I’ve interacted with before but not yet met.

I’m ready to sit and learn and share information non-stop for days. If I could do this type of thing all day every day, I would.

I think that most of all, though, I’m ready to be with my people, my tribe. As a rare disease patient who didn’t receive medical care growing up despite several illnesses, I have a unique perspective on things. My combination of physical and mental issues don’t always make things easy. I think, though, that MedX will provide me another ‘home’ – just like the one I’ve found with AI. To me, they’re almost two sides of the same coin. AI focuses on living the best life we can right now and MedX focuses on changing things to make that easier and better.

I’m ready to sit in a room with other patients and be treated like my opinion matters, like I am an expert on a part of health care. The acknowledgment that patients matter to health care and that our input matters? It’s an amazing thing.

I’m excited to go be a part of it.

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The solid rocket boosters will be ignited, and the bolts that have secured the shuttle to the ground in the last six seconds of the countdown are explosively released, allowing the orbiter to rocket into the sky. Once this happens, we have liftoff!

Well, in late September at least 🙂

I hope that you’ll join me on my MedX journey! I’ll be live tweeting the whole time so hit me up @kirstie_schultz, catch the live streams, and join in the conversations using the tag #MedX.

 

Terminology Tuesday: pain

Defining pain may seem slightly silly. We all have experienced it at one point or another, whether it’s acute like a sprain or chronic like JA. Definitions often cite unpleasantness due to external stimulation or tissue damage or sensory and emotional issues.

The biggest thing to know about pain is that it’s a product of the nervous system. Your nerves, some of which are better at detecting damage or are closer to areas we tend to hurt more, send messages to your brain via your spinal cord to say “HEY! THIS IS A THING AND IT ISN’T FUN!”

That message is a little altered on the way up to the brain, so pain that occurs often or is quite small isn’t as big of a deal. Sometimes it may not even be communicated at all.

Your brain sends endorphins and other pain-killing chemicals out to help lessen the pain. Depending on what you injured, your inflammatory buddies will head to the injured area and cause a little swelling and/or patrol for invaders and germs.

Chronic pain is rough. My fibromyalgia is considered a “lifelong central nervous system disorder.” My brain doesn’t process some signals correctly – some of that could be the spine’s fault – and I wind up feeling widespread pain from things that are not painful… like clothing rubbing against my skin.

We all know pain is so much more than these signals, but I think this is something we have to keep in mind. We can be so angry at ourselves, at our bodies for not working. Oftentimes these signals get mixed up due to trauma or other illnesses or any number of things. Let’s be patient with ourselves and our bodies, as we might be with a sick child.

 

Medical Monday: link roundup

Starbucks has banned someone for kindly asking those without a handicapped placard to leave the handicapped spots alone. I get that this could be seen as harassment and loitering and so Starbucks may feel as though it’s a justifiable move. However, the fact that it doesn’t seem like they care that much about their disabled customers scares me. When I read this article, I was actually sitting in a wheelchair in the airport debating getting Starbucks… and quickly changed my mind.

At least I didn’t run into this cop.

Did you know that disabled people have worse unemployment rates than their ‘normal’ counterparts?

If you’re tired often, this Buzzfeed post may resonate with you.

Even if you don’t have multiple sclerosis, you likely can identify with the struggles Matt highlights in this article. While he focuses mainly on dealing with the SSA and having a cyclical disease, I think that there is truth in that being a barrier to so much that we do. We’re in this interesting place often where we don’t look sick but we’re not normal; we don’t need help all the time, but often get denied it when we need it; we’re looked at as freeloaders and not people frustrated that they can’t fit into today’s ideas of productivity (as misguided as they are).

Speaking of MS, check out this video where President Obama speaks about Michelle’s father and his MS.

Have you heard the terms step therapy or fail first a lot, but don’t know what it means? Prescription Process has a great and simple page to explain it here.

Autoadapt has created this badass swivel seat for cars that could change how some people with disabilities get around. How cool is that?

Nike came out recently with shoes that are great for people with motor impairment and who can’t do shoelaces. The price is basically what you expect from the company ($100+) but these shoes are getting great reviews.

With my recent trip to the Juvenile Arthritis Conference, it was stated over and over again that we are lucky to have biologics and more treatment options now than others have had in the past. On the other hand, those drugs are insanely expensive and can bankrupt families. Insurance is constantly changing and not covering things as well as before in some cases.

Also, if you love someone with anxiety, check out this post on what it’s like to live with it.

About 1 in 5, or 20%, of American adults have a disability. So many of us have invisible ones. It’s hard on every aspect of our lives to have something that no one can see, and yet we can at least pass for ‘normal’ when we can. People don’t believe us or on the other hand coddle us to feed their ego. The suggest things that can be very dangerous like homeopathy. We often have to change medications in rapid succession, and the realization that you can’t find something that works for you is so difficult emotionally to handle. We either tell everyone we see about our illness or we try to hide it, much like my guinea pigs do with injuries due to being prey animals. Either way we get weird reactions. We’re admonished for not being as active as we maybe once were and yet at the same time we’re treated like addicts when we try to control our pain. It gets to the point where we or our sweet loved ones are fighting others off like emotional wolves… or we spend all our time trying to educate them.

We have GOT to start treating disability rights as a mainstream thing. It’s about basic human rights, and we deserve those – visibly ill or not.

 

Self-care Sunday: struggles with self-compassion and affirmations

Affirmations can have an amazing impact on our lives.
One of the best things I’ve done for myself is to start reading Blessing Manifesting. I know I’ve talked a bit about the site and Dominee, who runs it, but I just can’t stop.

When I first really started out on the journey to loving myself, I snagged a bunch of her free stuff. I posted a few of the things up on my bathroom mirror, where they still sit.

 

I think a big part of the problem was learning to trust myself. Growing up in my household, I was constantly praised for my smarts and then told that I was an idiot. I became very insecure because I internalized the latter even if the former was true.

In order to truly start knowing myself, I’ve had to treat myself like a best friend. I often think about how I would treat T or Kels if they were going through similar things… or, at least, what I would tell them. Between that and reading these every time I’m in the bathroom, it really started to click.

Instead of pushing myself too far, I am resting when needed and learning to speak up about things. It hasn’t been easy. There are days where I’ve wanted to rip those papers off the wall and feed them to the guinea pigs… because that wouldn’t be as wasteful and they LOVE paper, especially Jaq.

Another thing that seemed to be in my way is patience. I usually am really good at being patient with others but I often feel impatient with myself. I should be able to do what I want, whether it’s cooking or cleaning or building a desk.

It’s been really hard to have to step back and try to be kind and show compassion to myself when my hands don’t work especially. Hands weren’t ever a problem for me until the last few years. As a writer and someone who is on the computer often or doing things that kinda need good motor skills, this is incredibly hard. Give me my limp any day over crip hands!

Anyway, this is where affirmations can really come in handy. They can be really simple or general.

Or very pointed and specific.

Either way, they can really help.

What are some affirmations that you might be able to use?