Brave Heart, Brave Soul. She who is brave is free.

  So, what does it mean to be chronically ill? What’s a spoonie? And what the heck is spoon debt?  Why are some folks called muggles and what exactly is mu ggle sick? Well, those are all pretty good but loaded questions to be fair. I’m no expert, but I am familiar with the lingo. Why? I’m a spoonie. Not a muggle. I have sick days and I have good days. I have flare ups, brain fog and just plain I can’t days. Truth is I’m long past muggle (normal) sick. And no, I don’t look sick to most people. In fact, if you’re not inside my inner circle you’d have no clue what it takes just to get up and out of bed most days. Not to mention the energy required for a shower. I go into spoon debt often. If not daily. I’m always borrowing spoonfuls of energy from one day to get through the next. Hence the words, “spoon debt”. And no, I never quite catch up.   My tired isn’t muggle tired. When I say I’m drained I don’t mean a long day, a few hours of sleep kind of worn out. I mean somet...

Five years ago, I sat in my living room, just fresh off the chemo couch. I was facing another five months of being squashed under the weight of chemo’s poisonous  twin and triplet monsters as I wearily celebrated Mother’s Day with my family. My scalp was shiny, my tummy was turning and my boob was gone. I felt like a freak of nature to be really honest with you. The life I had planned on, dreamed about was not the one staring back at me.  I wanted to run, to hide to break every mirror in the house, to go back to my life as a two boobed, raven haired, slightly curvy, wanna be fem fetal. The truth was ugly, or at least I thought it was, as I sat there with lights flashing and giant signs pointing to the hole in the left side of my chest wall, boobless where once a multi boobed chest used to poke out from under my T-shirts. Now I was sitting, on the couch, with a self imposed gag over my mouth, a bandanna on my bald head and a swollen face, chemo induced, steroid fi...

Many a day I have lifted myself up by my bootstraps, dusted myself off , placed my hat back on my head and kept walking with a smile on my face. On most days I am fully capable of just that. One breast, two breasts, no breasts as long as I could see the sunrise I have been able to stay the course through the darkest hours. Losing my breast kinda reminds me of when Captain Jack Sparrow walks out to port with two of his girlie friends, He keeps promising them they won't be disappointed then upon getting to the end of the dock they women respond by saying," Is that it? The Black Pearl. Not very big." Jack looks rather puzzled and says, "Love, that is a dinghy ( Kinda how I felt after my breast was removed) . My vessel is magnificent and fierce and huge-ish. And gone." Why is it gone? ( Again my old breast was just fine, and it was just gone in a quick clean strike.) Then his scandalous friend says, "Is that it there? " as she looks into the distance. ...