Recently, I had a very ugly flare that caused me a lot of pain. Every time I have a flare, it really sets me back — not just physically, but mentally as well. I have an increasingly harder time recovering after each flare. For so many of us,…
I took my niece to a soul food restaurant in Harlem one day. It was there that I realized that growing up in Flatbush can sometimes limit your taste buds to only Caribbean foods. I suggested she order the collard greens. She made a face. “That’s gross!”…
Thursday of last week was a big day for me. Actually, scratch that. It was a huge day. A milestone. That Thursday, every moment of pain and struggle over the last two years finally amounted to something wonderful. In revealing the results of a recent kidney biopsy, my…
I’m getting married! I’d like to say that’s the reason for my column’s absence, but the reality is that the last several months have been crazy. In December, I closed on a house. In January, I moved. In February, I got engaged. Then, from March through May, I…
My boyfriend, Jordan, is my best friend and my rock. We’ve built our relationship’s foundation on a deep-seated love for food and the understanding that, in so very many ways, our realities with young adulthood are both uncommon and generally misunderstood. You see, Jordan doesn’t just sympathize with…
What others call “overdoing it” I call “maximizing the hours of the day.” One example is this past weekend, for which my Saturday was scheduled to go like this: 7:30 a.m. – Walk for Lupus in Manhattan 9:30 a.m. – Perform at a conference at Fordham University…
When I initially received my diagnosis, a regimen of medications was sent to me overnight. I had spent most of my adult life following a healthy lifestyle, so it took me days to read the side effects. It wasn’t because I had issues comprehending the words, but…
Barely a week after arriving in Thailand, I was hospitalized. Doctors told me that my platelet count was so low that they were afraid my brain would spontaneously start bleeding, among other things. I am so foolishly optimistic that I figured it would right itself and I would…
Living with a chronic illness is difficult, all the more so because most of my symptoms are invisible and largely undetectable by everyone else. My family has always lived by a “tough love” philosophy regarding health: Unless it’s something genuinely debilitating, you put on your “big-girl pants” and…
Five years ago, when I realized my mother would pass because of lung cancer spreading throughout her body, one of the first things I did was look for a therapist. My mother was the first person truly close to me to pass away, and I knew it would…