It's difficult for healthy people to understand the challenges chronic illness brings until it gets personal.  Chronic illness can drastically alter your daily routines and chronic pain can test the will of the strongest person.  It brings with it overwhelming emotions, self defeating thoughts, crippling pain, daily heart ache, and so much more.  But words don't translate into understanding until...

Sometimes life throws us a curve ball. For some, one curve ball after another seems to come their direction. That's me. Maybe it was my happy childhood that led me to believe that life was going to be easy. Maybe it was that I'd never really known pain up close and personal. No obstacle was too big to overcome. Life was beautiful and full of opportunities.  And it was... until a series of...

Living and coping with chronic illness can be difficult. It often requires stressful changes to your life and the lives of family members closest to you. Fortunately, there are a few tried and true steps for healing well with chronic illness that can make coping easier and your life more fulfilling.  I hope these admonitions for healing help you as much as they've helped me. 1)  Let go. A ...

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche once said, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."  He was definitely onto something. I've found in my own challenges with chronic illness that I've often come out the other side stronger, wiser, and more compassionate. Adversity has a way of doing that, it shapes our lives and molds our character if we allow it to. To quote Joshua Marine, "...

This post was originally published on KSL.com. I never expected to run a 5K race. In fact, I never expected to run again in my life, period. Having battled chronic illness for 17 years and suffered a serious leg injury 10 years ago, running wasn't even on my mental radar. Over the years just walking has been difficult for me. So you can understand how unimaginable it was for me to believe that...

I have a confession to make.  I'm addicted to my iPhone.  It's a modern day vice, I know. That being said I'm amazed at the new ways smartphones and mobile apps have been used to make our lives better, including our health.  For someone dealing with chronic illness there are now mobile resources available on demand that didn't exist even a few years ago.  So here are some of my favorite mobile ...