“Who are you without your disease? What makes you more than just your disease? How have you adapted these aspects of your life so they’re not completely overcome by your illnesses?”  I came across this question yesterday on the SomebodyHealMe.com web site, for the “Patients For A Moment” carnival. I just knew I had to respond, so here goes. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in 2008. I have had times...

Are you riding through life with training wheels on? Training wheels are a good thing, a very good thing. They let us try something that would be otherwise difficult, bordering on impossible if we’re not ready. Watching a 3 or 4 year old ride their training wheel enabled bicycle down the street with a great big smile across their face is beautiful to see. The child can’t even imagine the concept of riding their bike any other way....

Do you ever ask for help? Or have you been conditioned to think that asking for help is a sign of weakness? Do you find yourself thinking “I can do it myself” a lot? Guilty! I catch myself doing that all the time. And in the next breath I find myself telling other people that we’re all in this together and we can accomplish so much more by working together. Wtf? If I tell others that it’s okay to ask for help, then why...

Do you ever ask yourself that question? What do you get for an answer? Will you be good enough once you lose 10 pounds? Would you be good enough if you were a little prettier or a little more handsome? Would you be good enough if you were a little smarter? Or if you were a little richer? Or are you good enough now? It seems to me that many people walk around thinking and worrying about what they aren’t and don’t take the time to appreciate...

Do you live your life with regrets, looking back at mistakes you’ve made and wishing you had done things differently? This week I had a reader send an e-mail asking about regret and the mistakes that we make in our lives. I shared my thoughts with him and it also gave me the impetus to share my thoughts in a blog. I think Regret is an emotion that we all feel and it is very real. Whenever that emotion shows itself, I believe we need to...

When you encounter any kind of problem, do you focus on the problem or do you focus on finding a possible solution? This isn’t the type of question I ask myself every day, but a couple of days ago I was reminded of a phrase that I used to use on my kids when they would come to me asking for help with a situation. Inevitably this would be the type of question that they had a far better chance of getting an answer to than I ever would. After...