With over 300,000 children living with some form of juvenile arthritis in the US, you wouldn’t think it would be this lonely; but when you are eight years old and have just been told you apparently have this disease, you can’t help but feel alone and a little bit scared. I was lucky enough to […]
As a child I was born with a painful disease, Sickle Cell Anemia. Sickle Cell is a blood disorder that changes the shape of red blood cells, essentially turning them into misshaped sickle cells. Sickle Cell is commonly found in African Americans. The journey I went through dealing with Sickle Cell requires many long stays […]
Society glamorizes illnesses in movies and television shows, but trust me living with a chronic disease is no Hallmark movie with a happy ending. In reality, there is no glamour involved and often the endings are unpredictable. At the age of 13 while every other girl was preparing for high school and drooling over boys, […]
Interview with Bhavani: Tell us about your organization! I am the Founder of Chronically Driven where we share real stories by real people on the positive ways their incurable diagnosis has transformed their lives for the better. It is an attempt at bringing invisible disabilities to the forefront of mainstream media. We have been […]
I found out my second semester of my freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that I have a disease called sarcoidosis, more specifically I have Löfgren Syndrome. Löfgren Syndrome has no specific cause and symptoms can affect people very differently. The main symptoms that define this type of sarcoidosis are joint pain and swelling, […]
Living with Psoriasis I was three when I first began to incessantly scratch at the skin on my lower legs. I cried, begged, and pleaded for my mom to take away the pain, but all she could do was tell me to stop scratching. That’s all anyone has ever been able to tell me to […]
Living with a disability is not the end of the world. It has its challenges, but with the right mindset, a disabled person can do just as much as anyone. My family and I had lived with disability since 2005 when my husband fell and broke his back. We came together to get him through […]
On November 4, 1993, my loving parents welcomed me into the world. While my birth was certainly a blessing for them, I suspect that the following days were less of a joyous occasion than they expected. I spent my infancy in the hospital as doctors tried to find a formula I could digest, but […]
Life comes with difficulties and struggles. No one lives a perfect life, and at some point everyone undergoes misfortune. For some it is at an early age, and for others it is later in life when they are grown and more matured. Unfortunately, in my case, the biggest struggle of my life came at a […]
If someone was to ask me the triumphs I have come to because of my Cerebral Palsy, two years ago, I would laugh in your face and complain about being “handicapped.” But two years later, my life has a whole new meaning. I no longer see myself as a handicapped individual but instead […]