My Experience
-
What To Expect From a Knee Arthroscopy
Surgery is nothing new to me. Going into this surgery, I felt a sense of ease that I would recover quickly. . To some extent, that was true although it wasn’t always exactly smooth sailing. I ended up getting a knee arthroscopy to remove the fat pad in my knee. They were also planning to do an exploratory search to ensure no other part of my knee was affected. My fat pad was seen on the MRI as being inflamed. The surgeons went back and forth about how successful surgery would be. After failing out of physical therapy again, it was clear surgery was the only option. I can’t say…
-
How To Increase Productivity
If you’re anything like me, productivity is something that comes in waves. Dealing with a chronic illness, I have to respect my body. Sometimes that means being less productive than I’d like to be. Due to this, I’m always looking for ways to maximize my productivity when the mood strikes. Here are five ways that I maximize productivity. Working When I’m motivated This came with a huge learning curve for me. I came from a mindset of constantly trying to be as productive as possible. When I was unable or uninspired to be productive I’d get critical of myself. It was a terrible cycle that ultimately led to less productivity…
-
I moved…again
Last week, I only posted one blog article. I wanted to come on here and say officially, there was a good reason. I moved. Only three months ago, in July, I moved to South St. Paul. I have absolutely loved my apartment and the space I live in. Everything, except one detail has been relatively perfect. I was living on a second floor. Since I live in a house that was converted into apartments, there’s no elevator and climbing up and down stairs is fully necessary. That started to take a toll quite quickly. Not only on my heart but on my joints. About a week ago, I got a…
-
Surgery is Scheduled
Happy Monday Last week, I did something that I haven’t done since January. I scheduled my first knee arthroscopy. I say first because while my left knee is being put on the chopping block first, I will have to go back in to get my right knee done in January 2022. Surgery has always come with a lot of emotions for me. On one hand, I’m hopeful and excited to be one step closer to a relatively chronic pain free life. On the other hand, surgery always seems to feel like I’m testing fate. There was a lot of back and forth about whether this surgery will be effective as…
-
Collaborating with CreativeClaire
Happy Friday! As I mentioned in my previous article, I will be collaborating with CreativeClaire! You may be saying to yourself, “What is that?” Let me explain. CreativeClaire is someone that creates planning, lifestyle tracking, and other printables on Etsy. I’ve found her stuff to be incredibly helpful in my own life and so I wanted to share it with you! I reached out to CreativeClaire because I was interested in doing a collaboration. I wanted something specifically for people with chronic illness/ people with disabilities. As someone who needs to track a wide variety of information, I was looking for a service that would help me do it. I…
-
5 Things I Wish People Understood About Chronic Illness
I was reminded this week that the general population has no idea what it is like to live in a state of chronic illness. There were two occasions where I left a conversation furious. It was so clear that they had no boundaries when it came to asking questions or approaching the topic. So without further ado, here are five things I wish people understood about having a chronic illness: You Don’t Have a Right to My Information This is something I address relatively often. For some reason, people feel entitled to know what is going on in my body. I don’t owe anybody information on my personal health. It’s…
-
Crush is Going Back to School!
As we celebrate back to school, I have felt a little somber. I miss school, I honestly love school. That being said, someone is going back to school and it’s Crush! For those who haven’t been following my journey long, Crush is my service dog. Crush is currently trained for mobility assistance and medical alerts. His medical alerts are restricted to a behavior alert for my allergies. Crush has also alerted me to my blood pressure but because this isn’t a trainable alert, I can only reinforce it when he naturally does it. Crush has done his job diligently for almost two years. He’s very good at it. He’s extremely…
-
Exciting Things Are Coming!
Hello All! I am back! It has been far too long since I posted and here’s why:Life has been crazy. July unfortunately challenged me in just about every way possible. Not only did I have several trips to the Emergency Room, I started my new job, and moved. While working at my new job, I continued to fill my position at my previous one. They didn’t have anyone to start when I planned to leave so I wanted to help them out. I was going to a wide variety of doctors appointments. All in all, it was just an overwhelming month. Let me catch you up on what is going…
-
Starting Cardiac Rehab
I’ve tried to write this blog article a few times and my thoughts haven’t flowed together in a cohesive manner. Bare with me as I work this out in my head and through my writing. I am starting cardiac rehabilitation. Most people go to cardiac rehab for heart attacks or heart failure, so this referral didn’t come easily. As I’ve been working to get back into running post surgery, my heart rate has been a prevalent problem. Running has always been the activity that makes my heart rate spike but particularly now it’s important that my muscles are functioning properly. As it was explained to me, when your body is…
-
I Got A New Job
I have some very exciting news to share! I got a new job! For those of you who don’t know, I currently work at a senior living facility. I absolutely love my current job. I find it more fulfilling than I ever would’ve imagined. That being said, I have recently graduated college. I find it necessary to start my career within the field of disability studies. Although my degree is in theatre my goal has been within the last few years to meld the two fields into one. I want to use theatre as an apparatus to address and create change within the world of disabilities. So what is my…
