Today’s HAWMC prompt is to “write what you want today”. I’ve put together a variety of chronic illness links that I hope you will find informative.
Movie stars. When all is said and done, they really are just like us. The website Invisible Disabilities Association has the article George Clooney Battles Pain, Insomnia and Bouts of Loneliness.
The world’s first bedside DNA test tells doctors about a patient’s genes in minutes instead of waiting days for blood test results. This particular test, which British medical journal The Lancet has signaled as a first, looks for a version of a gene that complicates treatment of some patients who have stent surgery because of a drug that is used, Plavix.
More Canadian doctors making discoveries. A scientist has discovered a gene that could heal heart muscle after a heart attack. This same gene could also help cancer patients.
A vaccine that stimulates the body’s immune system to produce the antibodies that prevents heart disease by cutting up to 70% of fat from arteries is being tested at Lund University in Sweden. The vaccine would be administered either through injection or nasal spray and could be available in 5 years.
An appeal on Facebook for a bald Barbie to help young girls dealing with the loss of their hair, or the loss of hair of a loved one due to illness, was heard by Mattel. They will be introducing someone new, a friend of Barbie who is also bald. Barbie’s friend will come with various head covering such as wigs and scarves. The new dolls will be sent directly to hospitals for donation and distribution in 2013.
Wearing a pink tutu was Bob Carey’s way of expressing himself when he and his wife Linda moved to the east coast. He felt his life was taking, in a wonderful way, a 180 degree turn from what he knew. Life really did make a 180 degree turn when Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003 and again in 2006. From The Tutu Project web site:Â
Oddly enough, her cancer has taught us that life is good, dealing with it can be hard, and sometimes the very best thing—no, the only thing—we can do to face another day is to laugh at ourselves, and share a laugh with others.
The self-portraits of Bob wearing his pink tutu, and some humourous stories, will become a book to be published this fall called Ballerina, with net proceeds going directly to breast cancer organizations.
How Xeni Jardin’s Cancer Struggle Redefines Community and Journalism is a Forbes article that talks about Boing Boing’s editor, Xeni Jardin, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She decided to get a mammogram because of the experience of a friend and tweet throughout her own mammogram procedure where she, and we, learned that she had breast cancer. Xeni has continued to tweet about her experiences and is currently undergoing chemotherapy.
Those of us living with chronic illness have been judged by people we know and by strangers, based on how sick we look and what activities we are able to do or not do. We have to learn to not let their judgements about us affect us and how we live. I know the post isn’t about chronic illness specifically, but I believe it can help those of us who live with chronic illnesses to deal with being judged. Julien Smith of In Over Your Head has written The Complete Guide to Not Giving a F***! (NSFW language).
All of us are affected by mental illness. All of us. Either we are the ones with a mental illness or we know someone who has a mental illness. And, even though it is being talked more openly, there is still a stigma. Mary Walker Baron talks about the stigma of mental illness and how talking about mental illness should be as normal as talking about a cold.
sunshine and chaos 