Design with the 90% Exhibition: How Design Can Improve Mobility

September 13, 2018

Today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center will present one of my designs in Design with the 90%, an exhibition curated by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Design with 90% features more than 26 innovative projects from around the world that showcase “design solutions toward a more equitable world by increasing access, improving health, and empowering opportunity for the most marginalized communities around the world” proving design can be a force for social change.

She's Got Legs, She Doesn't Know How to Use Them

May 11, 2018

So, even though at times it feels like I've lost my physical grace and feminine expression through the loss my leg's function or the hands that apply my make up, I know it is not these things that hold my image, yet it's because I can't do these things and what has resulted because of it that really adds the pages to my own book. All that is waiting is for us to author and accept it.

We need to find it within ourselves to be ok and happy with who we are. If you're not ok, then no one else will be ok with you.

Uncertainty Is Certain

May 2, 2018

Uncertainty is a friend of mine.

The unknown is uncomfortable for most of us but we don't know how much until it's staring us in the face. For some of us the reaction is to become further unknown. We feel emotionally isolated and thus further isolate ourselves.

What I have learned about uncertainty is life is to be lived and not controlled and as much as I’d like some control over my body and this life, control is merely an illusion…for all of us. “We don’t know the future, much less control it. And yet we continue to believe in the illusion of control. We face a chaotic and complex world, and seek to control it.”

What Is in a Year: What Is Chronic? - Part 1

March 28, 2018

I can hardly believe April is approaching and in a week I'll be 39 years young. I feel like 2018 has sped passed me in some cosmic blur and I'm doing my best to pick myself up and dust myself off.

No exaggeration, I've cried every single day and night of 2018.

My health has spiraled out of control with chronic symptoms not directly related to my genetic muscle wasting disorder, GNE-Myopathy. Last year when my symptoms became too big to ignore, I began an aggressive search for why and have seen at least a dozen different specialists.

Symptoms like debilitating chronic nerve pain, chronic itching, and chronic pain have become new friends of mine, but not the good kind.

What Is Inspiration?

February 27, 2018

This is an old one but still one of my favorites. For me it exemplifies an array of inner struggles.

When you experience a life-altering change, it's difficult. When that life altering change is unforgiving and relentless in its taking, it can feel like some colossal cruel joke. And, when you open yourself and your life as an advocate - for a condition that worsens every day - balancing the constant loss and sound advocacy is just another level of difficulty.

I have GNE Myopathy, formerly named HIBM. GNEM is a rare genetic and degenerative muscle condition that ravages until there is nothing left to take.So far I've lived with GNEM for 17 years.

GNEM condition fits under the “Orphan Disease” or “Rare Disease” umbrella. A rare disease is any disease that affects a small percentage of the population, therefore has not been adopted by the pharmaceutical industry because it provides little financial incentive for the private sector to make and market new medications to treat or prevent it.

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