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Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt

This weekend marks the 18th anniversary of…drum roll please…My fish tank! Although I really enjoy them, I’m allergic to dogs and cats (and horses and, well, just about anything else that moves about…), so fish are the obvious choice for a pet. And, although they do require work, and cleaning the tank is not exactly…

It’s never just a “common cold,” is it? Well, for some people, it is. But for many of us lupies and people with other orphan or rare illnesses, the “always sometime new” often turns out to be something so very new that there’s little research, let alone any treatment for it. My latest diagnosis, which…

You’re upset over a new diagnosis, and you reach for the package of cookies. You know you shouldn’t eat them; your blood sugar’s been like a roller coaster lately. But it’s as if you’re on auto-pilot. Upset + availability of cookies = inevitable. Or, you’re so lonely that you’ll jump at any invitation to go out,…

So often I hear one or more people living with illness or pain say, “Why did God let this happen?” As many of you probably already know, I tend to take an “illness is neither bad nor good, it just is,” approach to the question of “Why?” or even, “Why me?” I don’t believe God…

I’ve heard it said that, “as we grow, we learn.” Well, I’m finding out things a bit differently: “As I learn, I grow.” Lupus requires that I don’t spend a great deal of time outdoors, especially during the sunniest times of the day, so I have become quite fond of “gardening” indoors, raising African violets.…

Living with chronic illness is hard, but sorting through all the symptoms to communicate with our doctors can be even tougher, sometimes. For example, perhaps you feel tired. Is it the same kind of tired as when your illness flares? Is it different from that, but sort of like when you’ve had too good a…

Sometimes, praising God is tough. Physical pain can make it impossible to lift a limb, let alone raise hands to heaven. Emotions might be anything other than joy-filled. And spirits can sag, especially as life with chronic pain goes on and on and on and on… Today, I was preparing for the music we’re going…

No doubt about it, there are lots of problems in our world. Close to home and far away, the news of the day is full of strife, violence, awful issues, and injustices. But even closer to home is your and my life with chronic illness, a war of its own, and, many times, full of…

I’m not much for awareness ribbons. There are so many of them, now, and of so many different colors, that I’m at sea as to which is which. I am, however, very appreciative of the flag, particularly the flag of the United States of America. Call me hokey, call me silly, call me a Midwesterner…

It’s hard for many people to understand the “whack-a-mole”-like life that is life with lupus. There are some lupies among us with relatively mild disease and for whom some treatment provides longer-term relief. But there are some of us…Well, it’s another thing altogether. Most recently for me, for example, the medication I took for years…
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