At Health Stories Project, empowering patients and caregivers to share their authentic health journeys is at the heart of our business. Only from understanding such a journey – which is different for every person we encounter – can we authoritatively recommend strategies to…
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Performer and multiple sclerosis advocate Brittany Quiroz is keeping it real—and empowering others. If all the world is a stage, as William Shakespeare’s Jacques asserted around 400 years ago, most of us are metaphorical bit players whose challenges and dreams don’t factor into…
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Many people living with multiple illnesses don’t just manage symptoms, they also adhere to a medication schedule and may need to repeatedly adjust their overall regimen (with their doctors’ input) due to how medicines interact. Staying on top of treatments alone can have…
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Rosemary’s health concerns date back to 1984, when she was diagnosed with lupus and interstitial lung disease. In the decades since, she has been diagnosed with several other conditions, making each year more complex and challenging than the last. Looking back on her…
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We all get stressed out from time to time – long hours at work, challenges in our personal lives, health problems, even traffic jams can send blood pressures rising. Stress is unavoidable. Luckily, there are countless tools and resources available to help reduce…
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When Alex Stone left home to attend college just over a decade ago, the freshman arrived on campus with an unusually furry roommate. Stone, now 30, has cerebral palsy, a disease that affects his movement and balance. He knew he’d need assistance living…
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When Mark Lyon was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three years ago, he started participating in new activities. He began paddle boarding off the coast of Del Mar, CA, at dawn to increase strength and agility. He began playing music in an effort to…
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What weighs roughly three pounds, has more wrinkles than a Shar Pei, contains invisible cells that stack up to 5,000 miles, and fits snugly into the space between your ears? A simple brainteaser, perhaps, but the human brain is nowhere near simple. It…
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Maeve Rochford is one tough cookie. The owner of San Diego’s popular Sugar and Scribe Bakery trounced her competition on the second season of Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship, which aired in late 2015. Before winning the title, though, she touched viewers during…
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Transmitted by tick bites, Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that affects hundreds of thousands of people in the United States each year. The actual number is difficult to determine because Lyme symptoms mimic many other diseases, sometimes leading to misdiagnosis. We wanted…
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Q&A: Outlifting Addison’s Disease Tyler Brown is a 28-year-old biomedical engineering student who lives in Columbia, Missouri. When he isn’t busy taking a full load of classes and conducting research, you’ll find him enjoying walks with his wife, lifting weights, reading philosophy, watching…
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The day Patsy Schuchardt noticed that every car in the parking lot had a flat tire, she knew something was wrong. Not with the tires – they were actually fine – but with her sight. A few months earlier, Patsy had noticed her…
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Share Your Experiences with Pseudobulbar Affect to See if You Qualify for a $50 Honorarium Laughing and crying. They’re two of our most personally revealing behaviors. Why? Because they let people around us know when we feel joy and when we feel pain….
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Stephen Marchello was born to play ice hockey. Like any sport, plenty of kids show the kind of raw talent that makes them seem destined to play professionally. What set Stephen apart was his indomitable spirit. “He just wouldn’t quit,” explains his father,…
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Back in the Driver’s Seat After Brain Injury Carol Kolk is an avid autocross racer. She’s also the survivor of a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Think the two are related? Sort of – but the accident that led to Carol’s brain injury happened…
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Hold the Salt: Sodium Girl Shares Her Story In 2004 Jessica Goldman Foung received a diagnosis of lupus that would ultimately change her life, her diet, and her career path. Here’s how a low-sodium diet helped save Jessica’s life—and how she ultimately came…
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Couple with Spina Bifida Build a Life Together Kerry and Dan Wallace have a message for people living with spina bifida and other disabilities: Your limitations don’t define you. “There are very few things left that are not able to be accomplished by…
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Alyssa Mackenzie, a 27-year-old Connecticut native, was recently diagnosed with systemic lupus erythermatosus (SLE). She’s no stranger to chronic illnesses, though, and has been dealing with multiple autoimmune disorders since birth. Alyssa writes about her experiences on her blog, Make Lemonade with Lupus,…
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Holidays can be stressful for any of us, but for those who have experienced the death of someone close, this can be an especially difficult time of year. Holiday celebrations go hand in hand with traditions – things we do each year with…
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Game nights can be a great way to bring people together. It turns out, they’re also a great way to have difficult conversations about chronic illness, says Adrienne Ciskey, a Chicago-based artist who created the board game Bitter Pills to help others understand…
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When Julie DeMichiel was 10 years old, she had an episode of severe headaches that lasted for about a week, followed by extreme weakness on the right side of her body. At the time, in the 1960s, there was no such thing as…
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By the time Karyn Spilberg was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, she knew all too well the devastating effects it could have. She was diagnosed just as her father reached his 13th and final year with the disease. Without palliative care similar to what…
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We’ve all done it. You know that someone is facing a difficult situation so you say something to try to help. It comes from a good place. You genuinely want things to get better for them. The problem is that what we say…
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If you look at Mark Turan’s Twitter feed, you would probably never guess that anything is unusual about him. Well, except maybe his infatuation with the NFL’s Washington Redskins. If you saw Mark walk across the street, you might think differently. A 43…
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Health Stories Project was created to give people opportunities to share their personal health experiences and to learn from the experiences of others.