My 12 Hacks for Attending a Professional Conference While Living with Invisible Disability

1 Aug
I avoid in-person trainings and especially conferences, because my chronic conditions make them quite uncomfortable and even agonizingly painful. I live with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, osteoarthritis and degenerative disc disease (with one terrible herniated disc named Larry), and...
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Documinitary: 4-Campus Speaking Tour in New York

12 Apr
I finally made another little movie! This was the first week of February, 2024, when I spoke at Cayuga Community College’s Auburn and Fulton campuses, as well as Onondaga Community College and State University of New York Morrisville. Here you...
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The Dark Side of Adventure

23 Mar
How I Lost My Ability to “Pass” and What Happens When People Make Assumptions Five years ago, when I published my first article on The Mighty (featuring my Splat system for communicating about chronic physical and mental health conditions), a...
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On Mattresses and How I Hurt Myself

6 Aug
Mattresses tell the tale of a thing I do wrong a lot. Amica and I are traveling again, and our first night was a marvelous stay in a National Forest where I slept on my comfy air mattress. That air...
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When I Play Favorites with My Chronic Conditions

30 May
This week it occurred to me that I play favorites with my chronic health conditions. What I mean is, I most often identify as someone with fibromyalgia and downplay my other conditions. Today, I decided I’d write about it, not...
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11 Pandemic Trends People with Disabilities Want to Keep

13 May
In my home state of Pennsylvania, signs of the COVID-19 pandemic are finally fading away. Governor Wolf has lifted many of the restrictions, such as capacity limits in businesses and no seating at bars, meanwhile promising to lift the mask...
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I Have a Sitting Disability: What That Means

26 Mar
It’s something you hear about. In fact, I had the condition for years before I knew it had a name. It’s not exactly official. You won’t find it on the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC’s) website or even WebMD. But...
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4 Things People with Disabilities Find Helpful When We’re “Out in the World”

20 Mar
One of my speaking programs on disability has a strong focus on universal design, which is defined as making spaces, objects, and experiences accessible to all people regardless of disability or other difference. Yes, this means having ramps, but much,...
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