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I can describe chronic fatigue, but it’s impossible to understand unless you’ve experienced it. It’s feeling exhausted from your morning shower; it’s falling asleep every time you crack open a book; it’s feeling too weak to pick up the watering can in the garden; it’s feeling more tired after a…

I don’t want to brag, but one time I was awake for eight days straight. I was hospitalized with an acute hepatic porphyria (AHP) attack, but didn’t yet have a name for what was going on. To say it was a nightmare would be cruel, because I would’ve made…

I save nothing. Clothes I no longer wear get piled into a donation bag, regardless of the quality or style. Once full, notebooks full of writing drafts get shredded and recycled. Throw pillows no longer matching the living room aesthetic are given away or carted off to Goodwill. I don’t…

I was already emotional before I checked in at the nurse’s station. More than a week into a severe acute porphyria attack, I needed urgent hospital intervention. My body was weak and my mind was disoriented. Luckily, the direct admission orders from my hematologist allowed me to bypass the…

I tugged at my biking shorts and unlatched my helmet. My person and I locked up our bicycles outside a trailside brewery and went inside for a drink. Thanks to RAGBRAI, a hugely popular bicycle ride across the state of Iowa, a serious biking and bars culture has taken…

At some point, it happens to anyone who opens up about a disability or ailment: Someone will spout a wonder cure. Ableist microaggressions are pervasive in a society of quick fixes and pain phobia. I see it everywhere: Minimize your pain with this new supplement or eliminate it altogether with…

I met my new primary care physician (PCP) on a frigid winter morning. I sat in the waiting room clutching my partner’s hand, a file folder spread open on my lap like a security blanket. My history of toxic relationships with specialists had left me exhausted, terrified, traumatized. I…

I refreshed the Lyft app on my phone as the speakers behind me blared music from the beloved animated classics of my childhood. I eased my body onto a relatively dry strip of concrete and continued my day of waiting. That morning in February 2020 started earlier than my body…

I bore down on the pedals as the pavement rose to meet me. Ahead, the tree-lined trail continued at a slow incline, swelling gradually as I glided uphill. With the push of a button, my pedaling took me farther. With the flip of a switch, I could be carried up…

I stacked a cling-wrapped tray of broccoli trees on top of half a dozen brats, then shoved them to the side of the middle shelf, revealing two blocks of tofu, a slightly wilting head of cabbage, and a storage container holding segments of an onion. Returning from the grocery store,…