"Surviving Chronic Illness" is now "A Body Rebels"

Episodes

2
June 26, 2026

When Chronic Illness Changes Who I Thought I Was

In this episode, I’m talking about the grief of missing who I used to be before chronic illness changed my body, my confidence, and the way I moved through life. I’m reflecting on identity, acceptance, and the quiet habit of measuring today’s body against yesterday’s freedom. Through a memory from Sedona, Arizona, I revisit a moment when I had to face what I’d lost, what I was still carrying, and how hard it can be to care for the person who remains. This podcast is narrated using an AI voice. ...
1
June 23, 2026

New Name, Same Body: Why My Chronic Illness Podcast Changed

In this episode, I’m talking about the new name, the new season, and why I needed a podcast title that felt closer to the stories I actually tell. I’m thinking about chronic illness, identity, breath, survival, and what it means to keep going without pretending I’ve become a brand-new person. The name has changed, but the voice, humor, medical reality, stubbornness, and lived experience underneath it are still mine. I’m starting fresh without erasing what came before. This podcast is narrated u...
29
June 19, 2026

The Prednisone Demon: Chronic Illness, Steroid Side Effects, and Survival

Living with chronic illness often means depending on treatments that help one part of the body while making another part miserable. In this episode, I talk about prednisone, steroid side effects, sarcoidosis, sleep disruption, hunger, medication dependence, and the strange emotional math of needing something you also resent. It’s a grounded, personal look at survival, adaptation, humor, and the small daily tricks people with chronic illness use to get through the day with some dignity still inta...
28
June 16, 2026

When Anger Feels Easier Than Hope

After reading a blog by someone living with heart failure and pulmonary hypertension, I found myself thinking about the line between anger and surrender in chronic illness. Anger makes sense when your body becomes a full-time job, but bitterness can quietly lock every door. In this episode, I talk about hope, medical trauma, healing, and why believing in possibility isn’t the same as pretending everything is fine. Living with sarcoidosis and heart failure has taught me that hope doesn’t cure eve...
27
June 12, 2026

MiniCast: Chronic Illness and Fear: The Small Habits Your Body Quietly Erases

One morning I realized I had stopped doing something completely ordinary. Stretching. Not because I chose to, but because somewhere along the way my body decided it wasn’t safe anymore. Living with sarcoidosis and heart failure doesn’t just affect your health in obvious ways. It quietly rewrites your instincts. The biggest changes don’t always happen in hospitals or test results. Sometimes they show up in small, almost invisible moments. This episode explores how fear lingers in the body, how su...
26
June 9, 2026

Chronic Illness, Old Friends, and the Cost of Unequal Relationships

Sometimes the most exhausting part of chronic illness isn’t the appointments, the symptoms, the insurance nonsense, or the daily negotiations with a body that refuses to behave. Sometimes it’s an old relationship that comes back acting as if time erased the imbalance. In this episode, I talk about childhood friendship, unresolved feelings, one-sided effort, awkward reconnections, and the quiet relief of realizing that shared history doesn’t automatically earn access to your present life. Chronic...
25
June 5, 2026

When Hospital Anxiety Shows Up After Years of Chronic Illness

Medical trauma doesn’t always announce itself during the obvious terrifying moments. Sometimes it waits until an ordinary hospital visit, after routine blood work, when everything should feel familiar and manageable. This episode explores chronic illness, sarcoidosis, heart failure, hospital anxiety, panic attacks, and the way the body can store fear long after the mind thinks it has handled the hard parts. It’s about endurance, fear, shame, humor, and learning that a reaction is not a failure. ...
24
June 2, 2026

What Three Stone Steps Taught Me About Chronic Illness Avoidance

Living with chronic illness is not always shaped by dramatic medical events. Sometimes it is shaped by the tiny detours we quietly build into our days. In this episode, I talk about realizing I had been avoiding three ordinary stone steps, and what that small moment revealed about sarcoidosis, heart failure, fear, adaptation, and the slow way a life can shrink by inches. This is a personal, reflective, lightly funny look at avoidance, resilience, breathlessness, and the private negotiations we m...
23
May 29, 2026

MiniCast: The Hidden Side Effects of Prednisone No One Warns You About

Sometimes it is not the big symptoms that stop you in your tracks. It is the quiet ones. The bruises you cannot explain. The skin that tears a little too easily. Living with sarcoidosis and long term prednisone use means learning how your body changes in ways no one really prepares you for. In this episode, I talk about those small but unsettling moments, the kind that make you pause and ask what is happening to me now. Because chronic illness is not just about survival. It is about adapting to ...
22
May 26, 2026

Love, Caregiving, and Chronic Illness: The Spouse Who Helps You Survive

Living with chronic illness affects more than the person with the diagnosis. It changes marriage, caregiving, routines, fear, and the quiet emotional work shared inside a home. In this episode, I reflect on sarcoidosis, heart failure, love, caregiving, and the spouse who has helped me survive the hardest parts of my life. This is a personal story about marriage under pressure, the unseen weight caregivers carry, and the kind of love that notices breathing, fatigue, fear, stubbornness, and hope w...