Christine’s Go Fund Me Goal is $50,000. If you haven’t donated yet, even five dollars would be helpful. And if you really can’t help, please share this post or her Go Fund Me link on social media.

But there are even more ways to help! How many chronically ill bloggers have been touched by Christine? How many of us consider ourselves “Spoonies” or even have “Spoons” in our blog title? You can help get the word out by putting a badge publicizing her fund, like I have done in my blog! You can get the code here.

And finally, the website Conscious Crafties, which sells items made by chronically ill people, has made a special shop for Christine where all the money sold from the items goes directly into Christine’s Go Fund Me account. You can take a look at Christine’s Shop and the Conscious Crafties website here.

Christine’s fundraising goal may seem like a lot of money but I have no doubt that she can achieve it!

As I said, if it’s difficult for you to donate money, I hope you will consider some of these other options!

Thank you.

The post More Ways to Help The Spoon Lady! first appeared on Mama Sick.

I first read Christine’s “Spoon Theory” in 2004 and it came at a time when I really needed it most. I had been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in 2003, leaving me with chronic pain, swelling and exhausted. I was losing a lot of friends and the respect of many family members, especially when I told them I couldn’t visit them for Christmas because I was just too sick. There responses ranged from “But young people don’t get arthritis” to “You’re too pretty to be as sick as you say you are.” Losing the respect of family and friends had me in a deep depression and I felt very alone. At the time, Christine’s But You Don’t Look Sick website has a forum where I literally came upon thousands of people who were just like me and who were facing the same issues! Christine’s work became a lifeline for me and still does to this day.

But now, the woman who has changed lives for so many chronically ill people needs some help of her own. Although I have known Christine to be very sick in the past, she always seemed able to accomplish anything and be strong for all of us.

To say that Christine is having the toughest year of her life is an understatement. In January of this year, she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl which was also life-threatening to her.

Christine has been undergoing extensive jaw and dental surgery. The 20 plus years of steroids for her Lupus have wreaked havoc on her mouth. In addition, Christine throughout her pregnancy was throwing up five to seven times a day. She also has a disease which leaves her with little saliva in her mouth. The effect of all of these things have left her needing six teeth extracted, four root canals and filings. Now her teeth are literally falling out of her mouth.

Her physical and dental issues have left her with a mountain of medical bills with more to come. Her parents, who have supported her throughout her life, have maxed out their credit cards.

I know Christine to be a very proud and private person and I know she would not be doing this unless she were in extreme need. A friend of Christine has created a Go Fund Me site for her with the title “Help Christine Smile”.

If you have been touched by “But You Don’t Look Sick”, “The Spoon Theory”, have the words “spoon” or “spoonie” in your blog or call yourself a spoonie, I urge you to donate whatever you can to Christine’s campaign. I realize that a lot of spoonies have their own medical bills or live on disability but even as little as $5 can go a long way. Millions of people know of “The Spoon Theory” and “But You Don’t Look Sick” and when you think about it, reaching her goal should be an easy one.

If you are a chronic illness blogger, I ask that you also post for Christine. Post, tweet, retweet, share on Facebook, etc. so everyone can know that for the first time in her life, Christine is asking for OUR help.

If you do not have a chronic illness, I also ask that you thank God you are healthy and donate whatever you can to the woman who has changed so many sick people’s lives.

Thank you.

The post One of Our Own Needs Our Help first appeared on Mama Sick.

Prompt: 2. Open a blank blog post and “right click paste” in the body of the post…what was pasted? Explain it.

Spoon Theory mentioned on MTV! http://www.mamasick.com/2015/03/the-spoon-theory-gets-a-mention-on-mtv/ … #SpooniesThankMTV

I am really happy that this was my last cut and paste because it gives me a chance to write about a subject that is meaningful to me and one that Mama Kat’s fans can learn about as well!

Earlier this week “The Spoon Theory” and Christine Miserandino were mentioned on MTV. Christine is the author of “The Spoon Theory and developed the website butyoudontlooksick.com This was BIG news!

As a person having invisible illnesses; diabetes, asthma and bipolar disease among them, the questions “But you don’t look sick?” or “How does it feel to be chronically ill?” came up often for me, even from some of my doctors until my diagnoses were made. I lost a lot of family and friends who just didn’t understand.

Then someone referred me to Christine’s website and her “Spoon Theory”. The theory is based on a true story developed by Christine when her best friend asked her what it was like to be sick. Basically it says that we all start our day with a certain number of spoons, but sick people use up their spoons more quickly than well people. For example, it might take a healthy person half a spoon to take a shower, but it may take a sick person three spoons. Many of us refer to ourselves as “Spoonies”.

“The Spoon Theory” has been read by thousands and seen throughout the world. The But You Don’t Look Sick’s ? Facebook page has over 130,000 likes on it.

If you know of someone with a chronic illness, or you have one, I encourage you to read “The Spoon Theory” and see Christine’s But You Don’t Look Sick’s website.

Personally “The Spoon Theory” helped saved my life and I owe Christine big time because of it! I’ve known her for over 14 years and I am pleased to say I knew her when she had a tiny blog with a little story!

The post Right Click Paste! first appeared on Mama Sick.

I’m celebrating today with Christine because her name and The Spoon Theory were mentioned on MTV news!

Special thanks also goes out to Deepa Lakshmin who wrote the story about people living with chronic illness.

Basically the Spoon Theory is a way to show healthy people what being sick is like. We are all given a certain number of “spoons” per day and while a healthy person may use 1 spoon to take a shower, it may take away three spoons from those suffering from chronic illness.

Christine and her Spoon Theory has grown so much that people identify themselves as “Spoonies” and I proudly count myself as being one of them.

Thanks again to MTV for spreading the word and congratulations to Christine!

The post The “Spoon Theory” Gets a Mention on MTV! first appeared on Mama Sick.

When women have chronic illnesses, it often is very much out of our control what we weigh. Medications, our diseases, and not being able to exercise because of the pain and energy zapping we feel, all contribute to how much we weigh.

Now I am going to talk numbers, for me personally.  I am 5 feet 6 inches tall.  You may be envious of my current weight but the fact is that I am not happy about it.  Everything is relative, you know?  I weigh the most I have ever weighed, except for being pregnant, 157 pounds. Now, I know that some of it is swelling, but who knows how much weight that is, a couple of pounds? Less?  No one can answer that for me!  I seem to wear it well, and am currently wearing sizes 8s, 10s and 12s.  Sizes are crazy aren’t they?  How can I still wear my size 8s?  Why are some size 10s swimming on me?  I have what I would describe as a Rubenesque figure.  Only we don’t live in the 1600s:-(

For many years I was a solid size 10 with my weight being around 145 pounds, give or take. I got comfortable in my size 10 clothes, I accepted “size 10 me”, finally.  Some people would even praise the fact that my weight never wavered.

Then I had Tyler.  My pre-pregnancy weight was 146 pounds and I gained just 23 pounds as I had Gestational Diabetes and had to be careful.  When I came home from the hospital, my stomach had already shrunk considerably and I had already lost 13 pounds, which really is like the baby and the crap that you carry with the baby.

In one month or less I was down to my pre-pregnancy weight.  And then I just kept going.  I was not on a diet, I was not doing anything.  I had a stomach virus on top of that and so when Tyler was seven months old I weighed a horrendous 117 pounds!  I looked like a heroin chic model.  People at my new job were telling me, “YOU just had a baby?  You look amazing!”

But I hated myself.  This wasn’t ME.  I had gone from years of being a size 10 to a size 4! I would look at myself in the mirror and cry.  I was in shock over my skeletal frame.  While people were praising me for my weight loss and amazing will power, my doctors were flummoxed. My endocrinologist was telling me I was just plain crazy. He said it in a bit nicer way, he said I had post-partum issues and should be seeing a Psychiatrist and therapist, but I already was, the big dummy.  Is it even necessary to say I fired him?  I was being tested for every cancer there was since unexplained weight loss is a major symptom of cancer.  No cancer, thankfully.

I used to test the power of eating anything and everything I wanted.  I used to have half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, sometimes more, every night.  After the stomach virus and a return to a desk job I did stabilize into a comfortable size six.  I started to like being a size six, and who wouldn’t?  Being able to wear trendy or classic office clothes without looking like I was trying to stretch them just to fit into them.  I was always the kind of woman who made it a habit to go the next size up, rather than attempt to fit into the size they weren’t any more.  It was more flattering.

I realize now that Lupus was starting.  It had taken over my metabolism, my endocrine system. Lupus wanted me thin and so I was.  I was finally that willowy amazon that I had thought could only be found in my dreams.  The only thing that I didn’t have was I have always wished I was shorter. Oh, they have such cute things for petite women, don’t they? Well, that probably IS going to happen too since I have Osteoporosis and have already shrunk a few inches.  Be careful what you wish for, right?

Enough with the past, let’s get to how I ended up being 160 pounds.  My meds for my mental illnesses, and my mental illnesses themselves, make me want to eat.  My pain makes me want to eat. Sometimes it is so bad, I don’t want to feel it any more, I want to feel an Oreo cookie, you know? Someone told me that eating releases the same pleasurable endorphins as narcotics or exercise or being happy.  For me the only thing that works is the food as I cannot exercise, I do not get high from my drugs and happiness around here is short lived.  I only have the Oreos!

I also have this weird feeling that I cannot nap or sleep unless I feel full.  The food helps make me sleepy and it is easier to get to sleep.  Or then I have insomnia and I get hungry, being up for two to three hours in the middle of the night, who wouldn’t?

But what really convinced me that I had to do something was the amazing Christine Miserandino, The Spoon Lady, of the amazing But You Don’t Look Sick blog.  I saw pictures of her recently and she is already so beautiful but now she has lost the weight she was lamenting about and she looks fabulous!

I don’t know how Christine did it, but I have decided to go on the ShutMyMouth Diet.  I have decided that I am stronger than Lupus, Depression, or my meds and I DO have control over how much I weigh.  I will not let them have their “weigh” with me any longer.

So far I have lost a pound on the ShutMyMouth Diet but more so, I feel like I am once again the Master of my body, the Queen of my Temple, or whatever you would like to call it.  I am not advocating that YOU should go on the ShutMyMouth Diet, you should consult your doctor before beginning any diet, but for me, what harm could the ShutMyMouth Diet really do?

My goal is to lose a reasonable 20 pounds in how ever long it takes, as I will be eating my usual meals and a treat when I want it, as long as it is within reason.  Maybe I am on to something with this new ShutMyMouth Diet?

The post The ShutMyMouth Diet first appeared on Mama Sick.

I have to say that I am pleased and proud of myself for making it thus far and thank God that He has allowed me the health to continue to do so.

Here is my First Blogiversary post if you are so curious.

Like many chronically ill people, I wondered why it was ME who had to be so sick, why I had to hurt every day.  I have been chronically ill since 2003.  Also, like many, I wondered what I had done to deserve this life of pain and fatigue, when there were so many evil and nasty people who walked around on top of the world?  Was God punishing me?

The 5 Stages of Coping With a Chronic Illness was originally used by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book, On Death and Dying, but it works for the perpetually feeling like you are always dying very well.  For so many years I was caught up in a Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression cycle.  Acceptance my ass!  Acceptance to me meant giving up and I was never going to do that, I was never going to stop fighting, looking for answers, looking for the cures.  How could so many just lay down and Accept?

Yet, in a way, I was jealous of these people too, those who were so wise and so at peace with themselves.

Why, why, why??  What was the purpose of this pain and suffering??  Why me??

But little by little, I realized that my illnesses did have a purpose and there was a reason this was happening to me. Through my blogging, my writing, and using my actual voice in casual conversations with strangers, I slowly began to realize that I was making a difference.  That I was comforting those like me and that I was educating those who were not, and sometimes it was even both at the same time.  The comments, the emails, the vision of the lightbulb clicking on in someones head.  Thank you, Emily, thank you for helping me, for showing me that I am not alone, thank you for telling me about Lupus, I feel wiser for having met you.  Almost every day, the evidence was mounting.

And so I have come to believe that if someone was to have a chronic illness it should be…ME.

On Tuesday my computer crashed, it would turn on but show nothing but a blue screen.  I was crying as my husband sat on the phone with tech support.  My laptop is my life, as it is for so many chronically ill or disabled people.  The techie couldnt get my computer started so he suggested I make an appointment to take it in, which I did yesterday.

When the young man who came over to help me said hello, I jumped.  I told him that if my computer was dead and my data could not be recovered then I would probably start crying.

Dont worry, he said.  A lot of people cry.

I explained that my laptop was extremely important to me as I was disabled.  My laptop was my life, I was a blogger, a writer.  I told him that I had many physical illnesses such as Lupus and Chronic Fatigue, and Mental illnesses such as Anxiety, Depression and Mania.  That my physically tired and achy body was constantly at war with my go-go-go brain and that the only time I felt brain and body coming together was when I wrote.

I chatted and chatted, as my mania makes me do, all the while thinking This guy is probably thinking I am a freak.  I felt like he was humoring me.

The only time I got something back from him was something like, I think many of us all suffer from sort of depression at one time or another.

Oh, yes definitely, I said, as I was thinking This guy probably cant wait to get me out of here.  Whoa, slow down lady!

When I left the man said to me, What is your blog?  Ill take a look at it.

Yeah, right.  Youre just trying to be a good customer service rep.

What happened with my computer is not important to the story but here is what is.  Last night I got this from the CONTACT ME section of my blog:

Met you earlier this afternoon in the mall. Just wanted to say thank you. It’s always nice to meet somebody else who also suffers from severe depression. Although I can’t relate to your situation with your family, I can relate to struggling with bipolar disorder. It’s hard to admit to another human being the severity or even the existence of your disease. I wish you the best of luck with everything. You’ve got a friend…(ending left out for privacy sake)

I frantically thought and thought.  Who the Hell was this? Is my brain turning to so much mush that I dont remember meeting someone at the mall???  Who? Who?

And then, I got the clever way he ended his message to me (which I cannot print to protect his identity) and I knew.   It was the computer guy! The young man who just nodded and smiled and whom I thought was thinking that I was a freak…was a freak himself, just a quiet one!  And when I say freak, I mean that in the nicest way.

I asked him if I could include his message to me in my Blogiversary post:

Absolutely! I’d be honored and look forward to reading it.

It helps to know you’re not the only “crazy” one

Why yes, yes it does help to know that you are not the only crazy one, doesnt it?   Would it also help to know that one out of four American families has a relative who has a mental illness?

Why didnt you tell me, computer guy, that you too have mental illness?  Did you know that every time I tell someone I have a mental illness almost everyone tells me ME TOO! or I TAKE XANAX FOR… or MY HUSBAND… or MY MOTHER…?

Im not yelling at you, computer guy, it is perfectly alright that you did not offer this private information up about yourself.

I will do it for you.  I will speak about mental illness and I will speak about chronic illness and I will speak about people who dont look sick but are, and I will blog about it. I will try to touch thousands with my writing, and just one person with my voice, and I will do it every day I am able.

And I will join others.  Others like Christine Miserandino and Jenni Prokopy and those on the National Association of Mental Illness Blog.

Because this is my PURPOSE…and I ACCEPT it.

Two Candles for My Second Blogiversary and One For Good Luck

The post My 2nd Blogiversary! The Mission Continues first appeared on Mama Sick.