New Year’s Resolutions for People with Chronic Illnesses

If you’re anything like us, you probably spent a good chunk of 2018 dealing with your chronic illness, adjusting to new developments and learning from the hard knocks along the way. We’re not big believers in New Year’s resolutions, but we like to make lists and bring visibility to chronic illness, especially of the invisible variety. These New Year’s resolutions are an accumulation of some insights and hopes for the new year. We know that different conditions require different handling and that not all of these resolutions will work for everyone. We all have different experiences and life situations and that’s cool! But we want to share these resolutions to show solidarity, help allies support friends and family and let others with chronic illness know: you’re not alone.Read more

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Crohn’s and the academic job market- a tale

The abysmal situation of the academic job market has received a lot of coverage in recent years, with not much changing, sadly. You can separate academics into different camps: adjuncts and job seekers, the tenured who have compassion but feel helpless, and those who think that everything is amazing the way it is, and who should just shut the hell up and take it. Let me backup and explain the types of academic labor: Tenure-track: This is the unicorn amongRead more

WHAT’S IN MY BAG: Protest Edition

This saturday, March 24, I went to the March for our lives. I had been back and forth about going, because quite honestly, I don’t like crowds, I was worried about violence, I worried about restrooms… Then, I pushed myself, and I am glad I went. I can assure you that standing outside in Portland in March is fun, but I was in great company- my neighbor and her sweet, sweet daughter came too.  Also, it was the first timeRead more
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Remicade Protocol #237472

It was Remi-Day on Monday. Praise the lawd I guess, because I sure had flare symptoms. I didn’t sleep well and thought I could take care of that at the practice. But no, this didn’t happen because they must have booked several people at once. So as I get my chair, I overhear that Travis’ ex got engaged, only a year after their break up (tut tut), I hear another man describing his golf adventure in painful detail, and IRead more

My 17 in 17 challenge

I have been going back to exercise classes after Thanksgiving. During my childhood and youth and well into my twenties, I hated any form of exercise with passion. One, I was shit at it, and very often just too sick to do anything. Second, German PE teachers are assholes. #notallgermanpeteachers you want to say? No, all of them. One of my favorite writers, Arnold Stadler once wrote that there were two types of PE teachers at his High school. ThoseRead more
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What’s in my bag? -Post-op Crohn’s Edition

As a German, you get culturally conditioned to be prepared. We are a people of planners and what-iffers.  This can be debilitating, but it can also be empowering. In my case, it empowered me to leave the house after my surgeries, wound vac or not, trans-rectal drain or not. So, I packed my bag and went. Here are the absolute essentials that I have in that bag. Not everything is Crohn’s-related, but still useful. Sunglasses. Having lived in CA forRead more