Nothing Like The Sun © 2012 Jane Waterman
Invisible illness advocacy

Once More, with Feeling

Day 30 – Recap National Health Blog Post Month Sitting here in the last hours of November 30, I feel a lot of things. I hope it wouldn’t be too obvious to say that one is an intense feeling of relief. It’s been a real roller coaster, with a couple

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Angel #1 © 2012 Jane Waterman
Invisible illness advocacy

Lucky Thirteen

Day 29 – “If I could accomplish one thing (anything) in 2013 it would be…” I’m prone to all kinds of superstitions about a new year. Many’s the time in late December I would make pronouncements to myself about the coming year, often with at least a couple of drinks

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You say Flu, I Say Flare
Living with invisible illness

You Say Flu, I Say Flare

Day 26 – Make a chart/meme/poster and write about it Simon and Garfunkel once sang there must be ’50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’. I’m no expert on breaking up, but I suspect there must be at least 50 ways to explain you’re in a flare to someone who doesn’t

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Lady of the Lake © 2004 Jane Waterman
Interior life

Becoming Jane

Day 25 – How have your goals as a patient/advocate/person evolved? My goals as a patient and person have evolved in so many ways, as I’ve talked about in several posts this month. And although I didn’t really recognize it, I have been an advocate for some time and that

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Angel #2 © 2012 Jane Waterman
Creativity

Dreams, Art and Invisible Illness

Day 24 – My own prompt: What dreams and goals have emerged for you as a consequence of being ill? “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

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Spring © 2011 Jane Waterman
Healing toolkit

Moments of Joy

Day 23 – What’s something your doctor taught you or you taught your doctor? The, dare I say it, positive experiences I have with medical doctors (MDs) could probably fit on a very small piece of paper, so as I was trolling around my brain on a different topic altogether,

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Hanging Gardens © 2003 Jane Waterman
Healing toolkit

Unexpected Growth Through Invisible Illness

Day 22 – Write about change In a recent post, I talked about invisible illness and the process of subtraction: how illness whittles away at one’s health, work life, family, relationships/connections, and more. However, not all changes related to invisible illness are bad. I’m going to highlight some of the

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Dreams of Narnia © 2004 Jane Waterman
Mental health challenges

Mental Health (or the Lack of It)

Day 21 – Write about mental health Dear Reader, You might be fed up with me talking about mental health, or rather the lack of it, but I had some thoughts about it (of course) and thought I would share them with you. In some ways, this prompt is a

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Tribal © 2003 Jane Waterman
Mental health challenges

Alternative Depression Treatments and Tin Foil Hats

Day 20 – Write about alternative treatments/regimens/medicine. What do you support? What is crazy? Today’s prompt amuses me. Alternative treatments – what is crazy? What, indeed? I could wax lyrical about people in tin foil hats dancing naked under the light of the full moon, or sitting on the bottom

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Immunity © 1994 Jane Waterman
Living with invisible illness

Questions for People with Sjogren’s Syndrome

Day 19 – Questions I have for other patients I suspect this is one of those really important posts where there are actually lots of questions, but I’m too brain-foggy to remember them all. So I’m going to post a few questions, and give myself permission to come back to

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