Chronic Wellness

An avid outdoorsman, Mike’s ski season kicked off with a blister, soon after, he developed a hamstring pull and later a shoulder pain. His anxiety was mounting and his emotions were running high. In rapid succession, he was told he needed several surgeries. With so much of his identity wound up in athleticism, his world drew into sharp relief. Relatively healthy prior to this, he can now look back...

Having seen my expert pulmonary team recently up in Seattle, my doctor and I do not see eye to eye. I'm so fortunate, as a person with such a rare disease to have such a competent doctor, who is well-suited to treat me. With this recent visit it was made plain to me that my most life-threatening disease will always be prioritized. This was a new perspective for me. I take Rituxan (a chemotherapy a...

To see Arlene’s tai chi: https://www.youtube.com/user/faulktaichi To visit Arlene’s website: https://arlenefaulk.com/ If you’re in the Chicago area and want to take classes: https://faulktaichi.com/arlene-faulk/ Thanks for joining me for this final installment of my conversation with teacher and author Arlene Faulk. As she began to do tai chi she found that she didn’t recover, but started to feel...

To see Arlene’s tai chi: https://www.youtube.com/user/faulktaichi To visit Arlene’s website: https://arlenefaulk.com/ If you’re in the Chicago area and want to take classes: https://faulktaichi.com/arlene-faulk/ Welcome back to the third installment of my conversation with writer and teacher Arlene Faulk. What was it like having a chronic illness at work before the ADA or insurance portability/ins...

To see Arlene’s tai chi: https://www.youtube.com/user/faulktaichi To visit Arlene’s website: https://arlenefaulk.com/ If you’re in the Chicago area and want to take classes: https://faulktaichi.com/arlene-faulk/ Welcome back to part two of my conversation with tai chi teacher Arlene Faulk as we discuss her most recent book, Walking on Pins and needles about her journey with MS. Rejoining our inter...

To see Arlene’s tai chi: https://www.youtube.com/user/faulktaichi To visit Arlene’s website: https://arlenefaulk.com/ If you’re in the Chicago area and want to take classes: https://faulktaichi.com/arlene-faulk/ My guest today is teacher and author Arlene Faulk. Arlene writes about her journey with MS and discovering the healing power of tai chi in her powerful new memoir Walking on Pins and Needl...

I'm recently back from seeing my team of specialists up in Seattle. I go up to UW several times a year to consult about my lung disease. This trip I was able to consult with a rheumatologist who treats other patients with antisynthetase syndrome. As you know I take Rituxan (Rituximab, Ritux) as an infusion for my autoimmune disease. Part of how it works is it kills and keeps B cells from maturing....

Thank you to those of you who have responded about this topic. In recent conversations, I've talked with some folks about their application for disability and with someone else who is thinking about leaving work because of illness/disability. At a time when managing the chaos of these diagnoses and their impacts: relationships ending, friendships changing, our bodies hurting, to also have our hous...

This will be the first of a few installments about finances and chronic illness. Poverty is both a cause and a result of chronic conditions. More than half of the US has a chronic condition. Thinking about my own experience and autoimmune disease, we carry a predisposition for these diseases, but they are often ignited by an illness, accident, injury or trauma. How much might poverty contribute th...

For my birthday a friend gave me an astrological reading. During that conversation, I was told that I have the gift of processing but can sometimes get stuck in doing that. She offered me the metaphor of a room with two doors. The one in front which represents the future is closed, the one behind me which is not quite closed, represents the past. The "not quite closed," is indicative of my tendenc...

I'm feeling crummy today! I've just received my 4th dose of vaccine. I'm eligible because of being severely immunosuppressed/immunocompromised. I'm on a number of meds to suppress my immune system, one of them is an IV drug called Rituxan. Rituxan works by killing and keeping B cells from maturing. This is a problem because B cells are the primary way that vaccines produce and "remember" the antib...

Episode 345: Handling Isolation by Annette Leonard

Episode 344: And Things Change by Annette Leonard

Ascended masters often use death meditations as a tool to gain enlightenment. Given that, I wonder what living with chronic pain and illness can teach us? I don't mean that we've overcome our fear of death. But we are the living embodiment of so many people's fears. That's a big part of the reason why friendships end as illnesses become chronic. What do we have to show for the journey of chronic p...

Slowly, with me, take time now to perform a body scan. What did you notice? This simple practice has transformed my life. Both of my parents are exceptionally bright and so identified with their minds. They didn't speak of their bodily experiences or identify with their bodies. This orientation gave me a way to go when trying to learn how to fully inhabit mine. My mother, who was sick from the age...

David Whyte is coming out with a new book of poetry called "Still Possible." Last week I was caught in a cycle of sleeplessness. Because of that, my pain has been worse and I'm not able to access so much of my better self. I heard that title and was really challenged by it. I've since gotten a nigh's sleep and have reflected on that title. With chronic pain and illness -- so much of my world feels...

Have you ever been othered? Discriminated against or oppressed? Growing up in a mixed-race family Texas in the late 70's/early 80's - -- we were familiar with overt racism. Moving north to Indianapolis, things were much more integrated and the racism was still quite overt, contrasted with the Northwest, where racism is much more covert. Compared to my experience as a queer person living in a state...

I've been away and for part of that time I have been in Northern California. You may remember this summer when I posted about a walk I took that was waaaay too much for me because the 2nd half of the walk turned out to be sand. With all the moving parts, how do we assess what we can do each day and live up to our limits? On this trip, I took two "hikes" during the week and I didn't do myself in. I...

Brain fog is dominating my day. Treatment last week has left me feeling worse before I feel better. Today I'm posting about a "creature" that lives in my bathroom. Our bathroom doesn't get any direct sunlight so we grow marimo (NOT MIRABOU) balls -- incredibly low maintenance moss balls. They're perfect for those of us with little time and energy because they require so little upkeep. Perhaps it's...

I'm recording from a new space. We had a nephew join our house. For all these years, I've been recording from our guest room. Now I'll be recording from this, my guest room/my wife's office. The pandemic feels relentless. How interesting that more people are getting a lens into what it means to live with more restrictions, less reserves, etc. In Western civilization, we have such a narrative about...

New migraine therapy has been causing me a lot of pain. It's tough to keep trying new therapies and remain optimistic that a new treatment will make a difference. A few days ago my small dog suffered a spinal cord injury. We don't know whether the damage is temporary or permanent. I'm struck by how often the same is true of us. Last night we also had a 19 year old nephew move in with us to spend t...

Please visit my website and give me your feedback: AnnetteLeonard.com Thanksgiving has passed and the weather is cold, the days are short, the light is gone. So many of our winter holidays are about bringing the light. Often these holidays are loaded. Knowing that our time and energy are our most precocious natural resources, I've learned to pay better attention to what I want and need. But, my en...

I recently attended a virtual crafting event together. The facilitator told a story about her mother sketching a window box one day in her childhood and how that transformed her perspective of her mother. Moved by her telling and the notion that our perceptions can change in these magical moments, it got me thinking about how we think about ourselves. You've heard me say, "you are not your diagnos...

We had a spider plant that lived in the kitchen. Because I have daily migraines, the house is usually dark and I I sometimes forget to water the houseplants on a regular schedule. This poor spider plant was completely dead except for one little green bit growing toward the crack of light let in through the shade -- so too with us. When chronic illness and pain shut out the light of what's familiar...

This is a follow up to the video "Standing in Outrage" about the fact that my infusion clinic had unvaccinated nurses. The governor of the state of Oregon mandated that all heath care workers be vaccinated. I postponed my infusion until that mandate went into effect. I suffered the consequences physically for this decision. Then the clinic called and postponed my appointment by another week. I lat...