The beholden

I’m over on Substack now and I wrote a piece on being in a love hate relationship with pharmaceuticals. Give it a read: https://bentcolumn.substack.com/p/the-beholden

Skimming pills

Most chronic illness and pain sufferers take medications. We require synthetic and natural interventions to live our lives. Certain meds make things significantly better, others keep us at maintenance levels, and some have the very heavy burden of keeping us alive. Because of this dependency, our relationships with medical providers and pharmacists are of the …

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Response required yesterday to a letter received today

We try, desperately, to meet and match deadlines set by the world. But, from work to leisure, time works differently for the broken. Our bodies’ needs outweigh our desires to keep up with a “normal” pace of life. On the truly terrible days, I can’t function. I can’t leave my bed. Every micro-movement, even just …

Zebra looking for an umbrella

Having more than one disease complicates everything. Most of those diseases being rare and understudied turn those complications into catastrophes. Doctors don’t know what to do with you and they truly don’t care to try. When you are already suffering from a mystery, the last thing you want is for your doctor to quit helping. …

This site is for us

Like many people with chronic conditions, I suffer from a plethora of symptoms and named diagnoses. My journey to chronic disease was not an incremental experience. Instead, I seemed to plummet from a life of general adventure and good health to pain and suffering in 24 hours. Years after that peculiar day, I am finally …