A Life With Trigeminal Neuralgia
I have never described myself as a creative person. I’m drawn to creative activities like writing, dancing, and making music. However, I, as a person, struggle with creativity. The left side of my brain is incredibly dominant; I’m analytical, methodical, and I measure things quantitatively, which means that I often impose rules and regulations upon […]
February 28th is Rare Disease Day, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about my rare disease – Trigeminal Neuralgia. It is estimated that there are more than 300M people worldwide living with a rare disease. 4.3 in 100,000 of those people have TN. Trigeminal Neuralgia is characterized by excruciating pain, typically on […]
Over the holidays, Jon and I decided to record my cover of “Go Ego” by Eight And A Half. I wouldn’t normally dedicate a whole blog to a song I’ve been working on, but this isn’t a normal song to me. “Go Ego” followed me through the darkest and most vulnerable period of my life. […]
Well, it’s been one year since I had the surgery that drastically changed my life. Recovery has been an absolute roller coaster to say the least; every up has had a down, every twist has had a turn, and every bit of “full-speed” progress has required a brake. There have been times where I felt […]
When I was 10, I would try to imagine what my life would look like as an adult. It excited me to think about all the opportunities and responsibilities I would soon get to experience. Growing up couldn’t come soon enough. When I was 13, I thought I was invincible. I thought that through […]
There’s a phrase that’s tossed around the chronic illness community and it’s something I think about a lot. “Don’t let your illness define you.” Perhaps because I share my story quite often and quite graphically, I’ve had many people tell me that I’m obsessed with my illness. While I don’t think obsessed is the right […]
I’ve got to say, it definitely doesn’t feel like it’s been 3 months since the “Great Head Snip of 2019”. On one hand, it feels like it’s been much longer; I often reflect on how much I’ve accomplished since surgery and it generates this allusion that the surgery happened many months ago. On the other […]
Hi Everyone! I wanted to do an update, as I was just at the neurologist yesterday AND because we are nearing the 2 month post-op milestone. I thought about waiting until Monday (the actual 2 month mark), but we are moving out on Sunday and I didn’t think I would have much time then. So […]
Well, it’s been exactly one month since brain surgery! I’ve been getting lots of questions and requests to do an update and I think that this is an appropriate day to do one. To get right to it, things have been up and down. I definitely didn’t expect my healing to be linear, but I […]
On July 13th, I will have been living with Trigeminal Neuralgia for 6 years. For some reason, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. You see, when you live with a chronic illness, it’s vital that you take things day by day… and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing; fighting against my own body every […]
Living With Teal 