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 using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.
More info about Sarcoidosis and to donate toward research: The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research
This podcast is based on my personal experience, not medical advice. Please don't diagnose yourself, treat yourself, stop medication, start medication, adjust oxygen, change your diet, redesign your entire care plan, or begin conducting medical jazz improvisation because I said something out loud. Talk to your own doctor or qualified medical professional before making medical decisions. Because they have your chart and I have a microphone and a suspicious relationship with my lungs. You're hearing this episode in an AI voice because I choose to use one. My own voice gets tired easily and left unsupervised, it starts to sound like an old porch door trying to explain its feelings. The writing, memories, feelings, perspective, and lived experience are mine. The steadier voice just helps me tell the story in a way that's easier to listen to and easier on me. Summer arrived with humidity, bright light, and that familiar moment where I looked around and realized I'd made it into another season without fully understanding the instructions. Hello, and welcome to A Body Rebels, a chronic illness podcast. I'm Tape. Today I'm talking about the new season, the new name, and why this show needed words that fit the body of it better. I like the idea of seasons, not only podcast seasons, although apparently I'm a person with podcast seasons now, which still sounds far more organized than my actual life. I mean the seasons outside the window, the ones that change the light in a room before I've caught up with what's happening. Fall feels like things being tucked away. Winter has that shut-in quiet, even when life itself refuses to lower its voice. Spring acts innocent, as if pollen isn't out there committing crimes in broad daylight. And summer arrives bright, loud, and damp, as if everybody's lungs are thrilled about humidity. Mine are not. Since this podcast has been moving through the year with the planet, here I am at summer, starting season four. Saying season four makes it sound as if I've got a tidy plan somewhere, color-coded and laminated, with a person quietly handling technical problems in another room. I don't. It's me. Writing, recording, editing, uploading, changing artwork, checking links, fixing things I didn't know could break, and looking at my computer as if it has betrayed me personally. I'll say our fourth season sometimes, then hear myself and wonder who I'm including. The dogs? The ghosts? The version of me who thought podcasting would be straightforward. That version of me needs a comfortable chair and a serious conversation. The new season brought a bigger change too. The podcast has a new name, A Body Rebels, a Chronic Illness Podcast. Same voice. Same stories, same dry little comments under my breath, same body, unfortunately still under contract, and showing no sign of early retirement. The old name had started to feel too narrow for what I'm doing here. It sounded more medical than the show actually felt. It had that faint smell of instructions, like I had a laminated checklist somewhere. Step one, survive. Step two, hydrate. Step three, develop an inspiring attitude while your body behaves like a badly wired appliance. That isn't what this show has ever really been. I'm not giving neat advice from a mountaintop. Most of the time I'm much closer to sea level, trying to remember which appointment is next, why my body has introduced a new symptom like it's auditioning for a recurring role, and whether today's fatigue is regular fatigue, suspicious fatigue, or the kind where I start mentally reviewing who would be annoyed if I called them. I've lived with sarcoidosis for 20 years, and after that much time, the word survival gets complicated. Yes, I survived. I'm here. I'm speaking words into a microphone and annoying my own editing software. But survival isn't the whole story. Survival can sound so clean when people say it from the outside. It can sound like a finish line. Like you cross it, somebody wraps a blanket around your shoulders, a photographer catches the good angle, and then everyone goes home satisfied. Living with chronic illness doesn't work that way. Some days are not dramatic. Some days are pill bottles on the counter, oxygen tubing that has somehow wrapped itself around furniture, calendar reminders, insurance forms, messages from doctors' offices, and standing still for a second because I'm trying to decide whether I'm tired, too tired, or the kind of tired that deserves witnesses. That's where this show belongs. Not in the polished version of being brave. Not in a speech about overcoming. It belongs in the daily negotiations, the small bargains, the awkward jokes, the body that changes the terms after I thought we had already agreed on the plan. That's why the new name felt right. A Body Rebels, a chronic illness podcast, says more about the actual experience. My body rebels against me. It has been doing that for a long time, and I'll give it this its commitment is impressive. But I rebel too. I rebel against being reduced to a diagnosis. I rebel against being treated like a medical file that learned how to walk. I rebel against the idea that illness has to make every story sad, tidy, useful, or inspirational enough to be printed on a mug. Sometimes the story is just my body did something ridiculous, and I had to keep moving. Sometimes the story is I was scared, but I made a joke because apparently my nervous system communicates through sarcasm. Sometimes the story is I had a plan. And then my lungs laughed. The new artwork, the new website, the new theme music. All of that is part of the change. I wanted the outside to match the inside a little better. The show had grown into something broader than its old name. The stories weren't only about surviving illness. They were about living inside a body that keeps changing the agreement. They were about fear, humor, irritation, gratitude, medical nonsense, ordinary days, and the quiet stubbornness of still being here. Changing the name felt a little like changing clothes after a long day. I wasn't becoming a different person. I was putting on something that let me breathe a bit easier. And yes, I do notice the irony of using breathing as a metaphor when breathing, and I have such a strained working relationship. But that's what this is. Same person underneath, same history, same body with its unpredictable little plot twists, same way of telling stories from inside the experience, rather than standing above it and pretending I've got a clean explanation. The website has changed too. It's now a bodyrevels.com, which feels direct and much easier to say without tripping over myself. You can go there to leave a review, send me a message, or leave a voicemail for the show. I like that. It makes the whole thing feel less like I'm tossing episodes into a dark hallway, and more like I'm talking into a room where other people are breathing, coughing, laughing, resting, or listening while pretending to fold laundry. No judgment on the laundry. The laundry knows what it did. Starting a new season also gives me a chance to look around and ask what kind of stories I want to keep telling. The answer hasn't changed much. I want to tell the truth without making it sound like a brochure. I want to talk about sarcoidosis and chronic illness and fear and fatigue and appointments. But I also want to talk about ordinary life on this big, aggravating, beautiful planet. Because life keeps happening. The sun changes angle. The dogs need things. Food still has to be made. Somebody somewhere is still mispronouncing sarcoidosis with their whole chest. And I'm still here. That sentence is plain, but it carries weight for me. I'm still here, not as a victory lap, not as proof that I discovered a magical formula, and not because I've become calm and wise and permanently hydrated. I'm here because my body and I have been locked in a long, complicated argument, and somehow neither of us has left the room. So season four begins with a new name and the same stubborn breath. I'm not starting over. I'm continuing with words that fit better. I'm still telling stories about illness, but also about the comedy of being alive in a body that refuses to behave. I'm still talking about the medical stuff when the medical stuff needs talking about. I'm still making room for tenderness, irritation, gratitude, fear, sarcasm, and the occasional sentence I probably should have kept to myself. The name changed because the show finally caught up with what it had already become. A body rebels. Mine does. Yours might too. And even inside that rebellion, life is still happening. Not perfectly, not neatly, sometimes with low oxygen and a bad attitude. Sometimes with wonder. Sometimes with both in the same hour. So welcome to the new season. Welcome to the new name. Welcome to the same me, standing here in the middle of summer, looking at this body, this planet, this microphone, and thinking, well, here we go again. I'm not promising answers this season. I'm offering company. The kind that sits nearby, notices the absurd parts, respects the hard parts, and doesn't require anyone to pretend they're doing better than they are. I'm Tate, and this is A Body Revels, a chronic illness podcast. Thanks for being here. You're welcome to visit AbodyRebels.com where you can leave a review, send me a message, or leave a voicemail for the show. Please know I'm not able to respond to solicitations, sales offers, guest pitches, or promotional outreach. And if you'd like to do something tangible to help people living with sarcoidosis, please consider making a donation to the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research, or FSR, at stopsarcoidosis.org. I'll also put a link in the show notes. Before I let you go, I need to make my small pronunciation complaint for the day. It's sarcoidosis, not sarcoidosis. Sarkoidosis. Koi, like the fish. Except the fish gets a pond and I got medical appointments. After 20 years of living with this disease, hearing the name Mangled has become a very specific pet peeve. And I've decided to accept that about myself. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please follow the show, share it, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday. So until next time, stay safe, be happy, and most of all, keep breathing. And remember, sarcoidosis is only rare until you're the one living with it.
