• What’s Self-Care When You Can’t Care for Yourself?

    When we finally found it, I felt like there was hope again. There are very few clinics set up for treating people with M.E. and Linus and I heard about a clinic in the Breacon Beacons, near where we live. It looked amazing, set amid parkland, with an on-site nutritionist, physiotherapist, occupational therapist and pain management experts. People whose job it was to help me live, to encourage my body to heal and hurt less. Quickly, where do I sign? Self Caring But then the fine print; you couldn’t go unless you were “self-caring”. I care for myself – I love myself – I really, really care about my well…

  • Releasing Perfection in Healing

    It was winter when my doctors told me that the pain, exhaustion, cognitive dysfunction and muscle weakness I was experiencing were permanent. They said, “no cure” and left me to my own devices, along with a shiny black wheelchair and a packet of painkillers. I was 19 years old. There was a time I didn’t push to be well. I didn’t want to focus on “getting better”, because what was better, really? When does one know when they have arrived? After being told, definitively, that there was no cure, chasing after “getting better” seemed foolhardy. Too hard. Pointless. It’s so easy to put things off; we say we will buy a…

  • Trailblazer Interview: Tiphany Adams – Push Girls

    At age 17 Tiphany Adams was a high school senior with dreams of modelling when the car she was riding in was hit head on by a drunk driver on October 15, 2000. Three lives were lost in the accident and Tiphany was the only survivor of the 130 mph impact crash. She was diagnosed as a paraplegic with a T10 fracture and L2 movement and persevered through months of painful recovery to graduate with her class the following June. Born in Lodi, California, Tiphany has always been a small-town girl with big dreams. Today she pushes forward, pursuing her passions as an actress, abilities advocate and fitness evolutionary. She…

  • Bad Day and Work Mounting? There’s Another Option.

    Photo Credit: Esme Wang “The options when one is unwell and it seems like all of the options have dried up.” – Esmé Wang You know those days when you just feel awful? Maybe you are in a pain flare, perhaps your joints are swollen and painful because of the rain (me, today), or you have a migraine or anxiety is tearing you up right now. Bad day – it hurts. I believe in our power to affect change by our actions. But some days you just aren’t feeling good. The type of not-good that rest/yoga/meditation/medication/your healing modality of choice isn’t making any better. You work really hard on your…

  • How to Make a Hospital Stay Easier

    Whether we are visiting hospital for a day appointment, as an in-patient or a visitor it can be a challenging place. [Tweet “Hospitals are wonderful spaces of healing but also where the most intense things in life happen. http://bit.ly/1fG7tAG @Grace_Quantock”] This alone can make them very charged and very challenging. But there’s lots we can do to make a hospital stay easier, for ourselves or for a friend, colleague or family member. Bring a Bag If you’ve had to get to hospital quickly you may not have brought anything with you and even if you have had time to pack and prep you’ve probably forgotten something! Useful often forgotten items…