The Seated View

Do you know what you'd do if faced with an angry doctor or a nurse who repeatedly couldn't find a vein? My new post for HealthCentral looks at setting boundariesin health care situations . "We all have a sense of boundaries on what we will accept, and what we can do and say to each other. But when you enter a health care setting, different rules apply and all of a sudden, it can be hard to know where to draw the line. The angry dermatologist I’ve been there myself many times over the years. One situation especially stands out as a learning opportunity for me. I’d been referred to a dermatologist for my annual mole check. When I was shown into the doctor’s office, I very quickly knew something was wrong. He seemed grouchy and there was an edge in how he spoke to his nurse. When part of my wheelchair was blocking him, his angry gesture to get me out of the way sealed the deal. I didn’t say anything — it didn’t feel safe to do so with someone who had...

Some people claim there is no such thing as writer’s block. That all you have to do is sit down and keep writing and that claiming you’re blocked as just procrastination or avoidance. I beg to differ. Sometimes, it seems as if the writing part of your brain is hibernating. Writer’s block is a vicious circle. When you feel blocked, you don’t write and when you don’t write, it exacerbates the writer’s block. Writing is a muscle — the more you write, the better you get at it — and it gets atrophied when you don’t use it. Here are some tips for breaking through the block. via GIPHY Get bored If there’s a lot going on in your life — stress, chronic illness, small children, a day job — can get in the way of the creative process. Because your head is busy. I once saw a documentary about the spaces in which writers work and one man had a small beige room with a brown veneered desk facing that beige wall. Nothing else. Because distractions would do just what the...

RA comes with friends, a.k.a. comorbidities and this medication side effects. These are not always that visible, but one, usually rare, "friend" is: hair loss. Like we don't have enough to deal with. In my new post for HealthCentral, I look at the causes of hair loss related to RA and what you can do to cope : "Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can cause pain and fatigue and you might come to accept that. But hair loss? Yes, unfortunately it’s true that hair loss can affect people with RA. This article will look at the causes and how to cope. RA and hair loss RA is a  systemic autoimmune disease . It doesn’t just affect the joints, but also other systems in the body, such as tendons, the vascular system, and internal organs. It can also affect your skin and because this is where the hair follicles are located, it may have an impact on your hair. When you have one autoimmune disease, you are more likely to develop additional autoimmune diseases.  One o...

Having a bad day (week) with rheumatoid arthritis? Check out the self-care tips in my new slideshow for HealthCentral: "Bad days are inevitable when you have rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Between the pain, the intense fatigue, and general feeling of being unwell, sometimes it can be challenging just getting out of bed. Treating the disease with DMARDs or Biologics can reduce the amount of bad days, but rarely eliminate them. Somehow, you have to find a way to cope." See the rest of the tips for self-care on bad RA days .

Some people call it their re-birthday. This is more fun A year ago today the seeds of my becoming a zombie were sown. Well, truth be told they were probably sown a few days to a week before that. I f we are going to stay in this metaphor, a year ago today was the moment of conception. Are zombies born or made? A question for another time. Moving on! A year ago today, The Boy and I played hooky from work and went to the Royal Ontario Museum to see the Wildlife Photography exhibit. We’d spent the early parts of the weekend together, but he felt sick so I sent him back home. By Monday he was 85% back to normal — he claims he has a weak constitution, but it’s ironclad — and off we went. Halfway through the exhibit, I started feeling like I was coming down with something. I remember us sitting on a bench, each eating a small box of raisins, me feeling kinda crappy, him feeling kinda tired, and both of us feeling kinda underwhelmed by that year’s exhibit. And then we ...