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Showing posts from October, 2013

Illness and Spirituality

Spirituality is a topic that I have a strong interest in, but one I want to tread lightly on, as this is a highly sensitive topic. Religion can be polarizing, similar to politics, so in honor of the government drama going on, I will dip my toe ever-so-slightly into this topic, and may dive deeper in the future. To start off, here is an image from one of my favorite holiday gifts a while back, entitled "Nuns Having Fun." There's something to be said about not taking yourself too seriously, no matter what religious beliefs you have.  What brought my attention to this was reading the most recent Caring for Crohn's blog entry  entitled, "Losing My Religion." It brought up this wonderful intersection of religion and chronic illness. Any illness brings with it challenges, often lifelong, that have a major impact on a person's quality of life. With physical illness, the unpredictability and stigma of the disease can produce mistrust for the patient, n

Affordable Care Act

Greetings.  I'm here to talk about the government shutdown.  Ha, just kidding. Who knew how powerful Mr. White really was? We're 5 days into the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") and, political ideologies aside - really really far aside - I wanted to go over some of the important parts of this law for people living with a chronic illness.  You know, in case you're like me and didn't have time to read all 2,000 pages; I've reviewed several reputable sources for this information which hopefully will summarize some of the key points.  I'll leave the arguing of the merits or abominations of this law to the pundits, politicians, and anyone else who likes to debate social issues. Pre-existing condition clauses are a thing of the past.   Under the ACA, insurance companies can no longer exclude a person from coverage due to a chronic condition.  In addition to this, they're supposed to offer affordable plans and not increa