The anniversary of a life-changing illness – like a major loss or traumatic experience – is remembered by our bodies even if we would rather forget. Finding ways to honour these dates can help process grief and other tough emotions that arise around them. It can also help us consider what supports we need. And it is an opportunity to celebrate that we have survived.

“Our movements themselves need to be healing, or there is no point to them.” -excerpt from Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha   In March I wrote about the Disability Justice movement. It wasn’t simply about sharing some info on ideas that might be new to you (and me!) These things are a way of being that beg to be lived out.

I made this “Evidence Against Exercise – for people with PEM/PESE in Long COVID and ME/CFS” cited 1-pager for my own needs but I’m sharing it so you can use it and share it, too. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BsVoffMcPtg-buxROEsJWYmUz9jrRyyJ/view…

Since becoming chronically ill with Long COVID and identifying as Disabled, I’ve been on multiple simultaneous journeys – one of which has been diving into concepts of Disability Justice. I’m still learning and unlearning, but in this post I share some concepts and sources of information that have furthered my understanding and liberation. Ideas which now guide how I engage with activism, dreaming of a better world, and bringing that better way to life.

It has been 2023 for a few days and two things are still true at the same time: 1) there are joys and gratitudes to be found and 2) there is grief, chaos, and uncertainty. This year, I expect I will permanently lose my job and will give up my professional registration – the thing that lets me call myself a Physiotherapist. When applicable, I’ll begin using “former Physiotherapist” or MScPT, instead. It is a big thing to grieve, even though I see it coming and know I cannot stop it from happening, short of a miraculous recovery in the next couple of months. Some people react to this with…

Living in a sick, immunocompromised, and/or disabled body, right now, is heavy. It’s never been easy – the ableist world we’ve constructed makes sure of that – but in the context of the ongoing mass disabling event that is the current pandemic, it seems extra hopeless. Disabled bodyminds are crying into the void that we are literally dying, that we all need to keep wearing masks, that the world is becoming increasingly dangerous for everyone – especially those most vulnerable and marginalized. Meanwhile, the majority of non-disabled people are attempting to “move on” and “return to normal” at the bidding of our governments. The contrast is striking. Yet, if you…

Left behind. It’s not just a feeling of being left behind – it’s reality. And it’s suffocating. So, I have to get some thoughts out. No matter how messy or disorganized, I can’t hold this stuff in. So I’m using this space as part catharsis, part educational, and with less energy spent on making my words organized and perfectly grammarized, as much as I love perfecting those things.

If you’ve known me in the “before times” of my life – as a child, a teen, or an adult – you know how central sports and outdoor activities have been to my life. They’ve given me release, joy, connection, and fulfillment. Newly acquired illness and disability from Long COVID, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome after COVID-19 infection have changed that part of my identity, though. Fatigue, post exertional malaise, and postural, activity, and heat intolerances keep me from being physically active like I was. I am so far from the physically heavy job I worked, the sports I played, and the active life I led. Which brings…

It’s been nineteen months – nearly twenty – since I was infected with SARS-COV-2/COVID-19/”covooties”. Here’s what’s on my mind lately.