Life With Maka

The wonderful Dee from @dee.zoe and Emma from @gingerjello_ join me on this episode. We discuss how recovery can be scary when you have a chronic illness and the views healthy people can have on chronically ill people when it comes to recovery or simply how we look on the outside without taking into consideration that inside is a much harder place to be. Finally we chat about accessibility aids, Emma and Dee share their experiences with accessibility aids and how they have given them freedom to do so many more things.

Rachel from over at @byracheltrusty joins me to discuss what chronic illness looks like when it’s all new. We chat about how difficult it is to go from a life we’d planned that flowed with what everyone else around us was doing, to a life that we didn’t plan for ourselves. Rachel chats about her book and how writing helped her in her journey with learning how to live a new life with chronic illness.

For this episode I had THREE lovely ladies joining me, I know, THREE! Mahalah @throughtfulflutterings, Erika @erikajoysneath and Lica @your.sick.friend came back on the podcast to chat about friendship. We chatted how seasons change not only when you become chronically ill but also when you might get married or have a baby and what friendship looks like during those times. We discussed the importance of empathy in friendships and meeting each other where we’re at. Adult friendships are hard to navigate, I hope that you feel seen and heard during this episode as we each share our experiences with making friends inside and outside of the internet (cause let’s be real, Internet friends are the real deal). If you’re interested in listening to previous episodes these lovely ladies have joined me in, here are the titles of them! Mahalah: A Rainy Conversation with Mahalah - Fibro & Mental Illness. Lica: Chronic Illness, Teaching & Studying with Lica. Erika: Chronic Pain, Working From Home & Erika’s Children’s Book.

Elisabeth and I discuss the unspoken grey area of chronic illness. Elisabeth brought this topic to our discussion and I immediately jumped on board. When it comes to chronic illness, there is no handbook, we are all walking this journey blindly. The grey area can be messy and it isn’t talked about often. I hope you feel seen and heard listening to this episode! Here is the link to Elisabeth’s blog: https://beingmolded.wixsite.com/throughallofit

Anna Belle joins me for this episode, she shares her experiences with friendships when living with chronic illness, we also touch on relationships towards the end! Friendships can be hard to navigate, so whether you’re the friend who has a chronic illness or the friend who has a friend with a chronic illness, give this episode a listen to hear how to navigate each of these individually unique situations.

Kiara from @thechronicallyillnetfitter joins me on this episode to discuss how studying in high school with PoTS has impacted her and gives some helpful tips and tricks on how to manage living with a chronic illness when studying, whether in high school or university. We also discuss faith and the important part that plays in recognising where Kiara’s identity lies.

Emma joins me from @gingerjello_ for this episode. We discuss how important research and advocacy are and how oftentimes presenting research we’ve done to doctors can be the only way to get answers, of course that brings frustration which Emma also addresses. We also discuss how there is no rule or handbook to chronic illness, and how navigating that can be so incredibly lonely. Validation is such a huge part when living with a chronic illness and it’s so important we find spaces to validate what we’re going through!

Welcome back everyone once again. For this episode Erika from @erikajoysneath joins me, we chat about her journey with chronic pain and what her life looked like before and after chronic pain, working from home and how that has changed her life immensely. We also get to hear about her children’s book featuring an adult with chronic pain. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did!

Shannon from @crps.fighter.shannon joined me for this episode. We discussed the expectation that chronically ill people go through when they’re expected to live life as a healthy person would and how damaging it can be to our health physically, emotionally and mentally. We also discuss faith and healing, what faith looks like even when you’re not healed and how showing up as you are when sick to God is just what He wants.

Dee from @dee.zoe joins me again to chat about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and her experience of working in a mental health industry with lived experience with mental health. Dee’s story is real and honest, sharing the details of chronic illness that are so difficult. P.S. apologies again for the audio on occasion, I need to work out how to fix it!