In addition to my disability being dynamic, it also straddles the divide between a visible and an invisible disability, to the point that I can hide it if I want to. But moving between visible and invisible means I also have to make a choice between scrutiny and erasure.
Tag: EDS
Say Goodbye to the Version of Me You Knew: A Letter to Friends & Family of Chronically Ill People
For years I’ve heard stories from my chronically ill friends of loved ones who abandoned them or who refused to believe that their illness was real. So, I wanted to write a letter to the friends & family of chronically ill people.
Why I Stopped Taking Gabapentin
I am updating and republishing some of my early articles from this blog. Please enjoy this article, originally published under the title “Color” in March of 2017, about the early days of my chronic pain journey. CN: extensive discussion of the experience of anxiety, chronic pain, medication side effects, and medical neglect. Duloxetine was the first pain medication my doctor ever prescribed me, an anti-depressant that can sometimes help with pain. A year after I …Read More
9 Things That Blocked My Access to Medical Treatment
This is a new version of an article that was originally published as “26,” about the early attempts to diagnose the cause of my chronic pain and other symptoms, and the many ways my access to medical treatment was blocked for years prior.
Chronic Illness: Wait, Your Body Doesn’t Do This, Too?
A revamped version of my article “The Blue Book” about my discovery of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and early struggles with integrating chronic illness into my identity.
“Needing Extra Care Doesn’t Make You a Burden” Got a Glow-up!
Back when we first started designing and releasing our own original designs for merch, in August 2020, our very first design was the simple drawing of an orchid with the words “Needing Extra Care Doesn’t Make You a Burden.” After doing a few more designs, we learned a lot more about how to do digital art, what our style was, and how to make art that prints well. After a while, our first piece seemed …Read More
Young Hot & Full of Moderate to Severe Joint Pain: New Merch!
Edit: This designed has been moved to our Etsy shop and is no longer available on Redbubble. The products this design is available on have changed but if you had your heart set on a specific product and you can’t find it in our new store, contact us! Check out all the of designs on our Etsy Store: KellaCoCreations Original Post: These products are no longer available Some of you may be familiar with the …Read More
Adjusting to Social-Distancing & Other Lessons from Chronic Illness
CN: Extensive discussion of the experience of chronic illness, the emotional experience of living during the pandemic, brief discussion of ableism, grief, and financial hardships. The era of Covid-19 has been a strange time for folks with chronic illness. For anyone with pre-existing conditions that make catching the virus more dangerous, it has been a scary time with the already high stakes that surround our health getting even higher. But recently, everyone else’s world has …Read More
Redefining Disability: An Identity of Adaptation and Creativity
Ever since I joined the disabled community, I’ve been fascinated by the divide in perception of the concept of “disability” between people who are disabled, and people who are not. I wanted to distill this shift in perspective and make progress in redefining disability for a larger number of non-disabled people.
Interview for Secular Sexuality
CN: brief discussion of sexuality, sexism influenced medical neglect, reproductive disorders, and disability. Remember my interview about sex and disability last month on the podcast Into Your Body? Story time: Before that podcast was recorded, Vi La Bianca, a previous guest blogger for Yopp, invited me to come onto her youtube show Secular Sexuality to discuss sex and disability. To be honest, I felt nervous about interviewing about a topic I don’t particularly specialize in– …Read More