health + fitness / social media

medicine-x conference: the story, the scholarship, and the deliberations

• by kerri

I’ve been blessed with being able to meet a lot of really cool people, connect with a lot more, and be presented with a lot of really amazing opportunities.  At the end of December, I declared 2012 as the year of Good Things, and whether it is actually happening or it is just perspective [which IS still actually happening]. For instance, Ari Shine and Josh Damigo follow me on Twitter, and that is pretty awesome, because they are kickass musicians working super hard at what they do. I only mention this, because it is the pure connecting power of the Internet that has helped me land in a lot of places.

A few months ago, I haphazardly filled out an application to attend the Medicine-X conference at Stanford Medical School in Palo Alto, California, on recommendation of a Twitter follower who had attended Med-X in the past. Haphazardly because, thank you academic writing, I can make myself sound decent without trying too hard. And then, mostly I forgot about it assuming that nothing would come of it.

Last week, I received an e-mail that I had been selected to receive a full ePatient scholarship to Med-X including accommodation. Soon enough, the tweets started flying from others I follow with links of those of us selected for scholarships to the conference. In the Patient Engagement track, I am one of two Canadians, which is a huge honour in itself. Not only that, but to be alongside my friends Kim of Texting My Pancreas and Cherise, founder of Diabetes Social Media Advocacy or #dsma. These ladies are amazing people and hardcore influencers in the diabetes online community, so to be among them is amazing. We immediately started throwing tweets, direct messages and Facebook messages at one another.

Once the initial excitement wore off slightly, I started thinking rationally. School, money. Scouring the internet for the cheapest flights I could find with missing the least school possible. How I could get from San Francisco International Airport to the hotel, and how much it would cost.  Dude, I’ve never travelled by myself before . . . never mind in a place where my phone won’t work. Anyway, airfare had me scratching out numbers on a post-it. $550 is not bad for airfare going from the middle of one country to the coast of another in the least. But people, I work eight hours a week, sometimes a few more. I’m a full-time student. You know, the usual cards us students have to play.

I thought for days. I thought about making it work, about parting with probably what would end up being close to $1,000 for a three-day sprint of a trip. And I gave up on the idea, e-mailed the organizers of Med-X and reluctantly declined my scholarship. I Facebooked Kim and Cherise, Dia [who is basically my rationalizer] and Steve [one of my buddies in the Bay Area], and told them I was probably out.

Then at about 2 PM today my email bing’ed and there was a message from Larry Chu. Who offered an up-to $300 reimbursement toward my travel expenses to help enable me to attend Med-X. And my jaw dropped. I am already receiving conference registration, which is like $500, and a shared room at the Sheraton . . . and now they were offering to help offset the costs of traveling to the conference. This is a huge opportunity, and I’ve never done anything like this before. To attend Med-X with Kim, and hopefully Cherise, would be amazing.

I have another twenty-four hours or so to continue the considerations and make the decision. The Good Things, though, they keep coming, and I feel like how can I turn this opportunity down? Because it’s all aligning so amazingly–with so much of the cost being covered, with Cherise and Kim being on the roster, too, and with the haphazardity that I filled out the application, I feel that this must be aligning for a reason.

And how can I say no to the Good Things, right?

To be continued . . .

#hawmc / health + fitness / life

coming back to coexistence – #hawmc day 14

• by kerri

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I’m having issues staying focused on the #hawmc prompts and staying connected to and enjoying what I’m writing. So, I am taking what Ashley said to heart. Because it’s not about the prompts–it’s about the story that they create and blogging every day. I’ve already missed one day, but hopefully I will stay on track for the rest of the month!

And with that, I still have to post my 12 of 12 and get to bed at a reasonable time. So, I am doing my first-ever re-post of an entry from September 14th, 2010.

I walk across the loop between the athletic centre and the main campus building. The cold fall breeze blows my hair in front of my face.  As I push it away, I look at the people around me, people I don’t know.  I then look at the people i know: my friends, my family, my classmates, my instructors, my coworkers, the kids at work.  How many of them, like me, have an invisible illness?  How many of them have an understanding of the rigorous schedules, symptoms and unrelenting attention required to manage their disease?  How many of them fight their body day in and day out and still, like me, look totally healthy on the outside despite what may be going on inside or behind-the-scenes to keep them healthy?

And I will never know.  Some of the above people share their stories with me.  Some of them choose to keep their stories silent and invisible.  And some I will never even speak to or see again.

Yet all of us, possessing an anomaly settled inside, move forward–awaiting the day where our elusive cures will come.

#hawmc / asthma / health + fitness

note to self – #hawmc day 10

• by kerri

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Dear Sixteen-Year-Old-Kerri,

This year, some weird stuff will happen. I know that’s not the way you’re used to receiving notes, but because I’m from your future, I know where you’ve come from and where you’re going.

First, it gets better before it gets worse. I know it’s not easy, but right now, stop fighting with the stuff that keeps you alive. Yeah, I’m talking about food. This cyclic battle you’re having with food? It’s not worth it. It’s hard, but you will get out of it faster than you think you will. You and Jesus–you’ll throw the whole fight away late at night. So tonight: get it over with. Throw the battle away and start taking control of your life, not one variable in your life. You are so much more than how you see yourself now, and you can and will quit this thing before it gets the better of you.

Less than a month before your seventeenth birthday, you’ll be given inhalers for some possible asthma. And you won’t realize until later that it is a much bigger deal than what you thought it would be. When they tell you (twice!) you have bronchitis . . . they’ll be wrong. It’s not a fixable infection, and of course the antibiotics won’t work. It’s asthma.  It will be a hard road. It will be full of breathing tests and inhalers and doctors appointments. You’ll endure prednisone and you’ll get extremely pissed off and frustrated with your care team. Hang in there. it will change your life and your perceptions in far more ways than anticipated . . . but in many ways for the better. You’ll intertwine as a huge member of the online asthma community for a few years, and then spread your wings with a furious passion for owning chronic disease, and helping other people do the same.

You don’t know it now, but you will soon. And that’s why I’m telling you now to get off your ass. Before mid-February . . . go for a walk. Run and remember how it feels to push your body and still be able to breathe. Get off your ass.  Because it will be that much harder to do when your lungs are screwed up, but you’ll start doing it then anyways. And the dance classes you’re continually making fun of with your friends? Quit it, because you’ll be in there when you need something to fill your grade 12 law spare. Because of it, you’ll go places you never thought possible within yourself. And your body will thank you for it. So get moving now . . . because it will serve you well in more than just the typical health-variable-ways soon.  This means when you reach grade 12, it’s okay to hate gym class, but please file the rest away in your head because eventually you’ll need it. I know you don’t believe me now, but you will. When you’re nineteen, you’ll fall in love with kinesiology, active living, and your asthma will be in slightly better control. And you’ll want to push yourself a bit harder. You’ll walk a 10K race and you’ll feel like hell at the end, but you’ll be hooked.

You’ll meet amazing people both online and in person because of asthma. They’ll know where you’re at–and, like your disease, they’ll be sticking around. They’ll have an unimaginable impact on your life.

Finally, four years later, you’ll be in the midst of a huge adventure called life. You’re already grateful you’re still alive at sixteen, but now you’ll see the reasons behind it.

The current shit will end or get better, I promise. Hang on, remember the journey, write it down deeper than you already are and have been all these years . . . and you’ll get where you’re meant to be when you’re meant to be there.

Love and Good Things,

Twenty-Year-Old Kerri

Chronic Roadtrip / friends / health + fitness

chronic roadtrip – #hawmc day 8

• by kerri

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As I was tweeting with Mike earlier about the difficulties he and I were having with this prompt, I was blank. I was so, so blind to the fact that I have been having an amazing conversation for the last twenty-four or so hours with friends, new and old, on Twitter. The thing about Twitter conversations is that there are so many that are so full of goodness, I often find myself lost in the ideas and not present in the conversation that builds these ideas.

I cannot recapture all of the conversation from last night with Jamie, Larry, Tom and Carrie Lynn, because there were too many ideas, too many tweets, and too long of an amazing discussion of an eruption of tweets, rapid-fire, between two countries–one state and two provinces, Twitter, the facilitator hepling to make our big, big world just a bit smaller. It spawned from my mention of trying to get myself to Toronto in August . . . and then the volcano erupted.

Chronic Roadtrip was born.  A journey being discovered, a plan being determined, a purpose being ignited. A spark we want to spread into a flame of empowerment for people with chronic diseases, like Jamie, Larry, Tom, Carrie Lynn and I.  Except they [ahem: Tom] are going to steal my pancreas as mine is kickass [read: I don’t have diabetes], whereas I’m going to cough while their pumps and meters beep, and Larry’s guide dog Keeta barks.  It’s gonna be an epic chorus in our adventure, wherever it goes.

There is very little solidly determined to formulate a road map, and very little I can say, especially at this point in the journey.

If we are even to make it happen it may involve August, an RV and plenty of adventure with a purpose: education and empowerment.

Ready, set, go, go, go!

#hawmc / advocacy / health + fitness / life / quotes

quotation inspiration – #hawmc day 2

• by kerri

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As irony would have it, I connected with Catherine from A Diabetic Ballerina again yesterday–she retweeted my #hawmc post right after my mom e-mailed me that she had printed the tagline from Catherine’s blog and put it on her wall at work after reading it in my e-mail signature. So good. Today, being quotation inspiration day, and Mirror Mantra Monday (hi Mike!), in searching for a quote, I decided what better to use than one of my ultimate favourites–one belonging to Catherine! Canadians unite!

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There are so many Good Things here on so many levels. Here goes.

We are here to have impact. We are here to change ourselves . . . and in turn, live with the hope that we will change the world one person at a time. Run at life full force, whether that is a physical run or a metaphorical run. Go at it. Get it. And don’t let it get away.

Movement is something that has become increasingly important to me over the last few years. “Love is a movement.” [–Switchfoot].  Connection is a movement, a daring to step beyond our own personal bubbles that far too many people seem completely okay being smothered inside.  Movement is spreading our metaphorical wings to experience what we never dreamed we would become or become capable of.  Movement is that desire to own your life. And if you, like me, and like Catherine, live with a chronic disease . . . then owning your disease is a huge part of owning your life. Owning the choices you make.  Each choice is a decision to move, and each decision to move is a choice . . . it can be cyclical.  Whether it is cyclical for the better, or the worse is a choice . . . and I hope to see the cycle, the ripple effect, be for the better.

The most literal form of the word is the one that has gained the most importance to me personally on in the last year. The movement that I choose to make physically, and the movement I hope to instil in others. And the sharing, the rippling, of this type of movement in our world. Physical activity and exercise . . . it is a choice, and it too, is cyclical. There is no such thing as can’t, and each step forward, each movement, is an impact on health and wellbeing for the better.  The movement in my classes to create a movement towards movement. The movement of the kids at work as they experience something new that they are capable of, something that they are able to accomplish while improving their health and having fun. The movement of changing the thoughts from negative to positive, and still underscoring fun.

The movement of dance–the movement of my body connected with my spirit, emotions, environment all moving, melting into one moment, one movement.

The movement to change. To reach out to touch people through whatever means possible.  Making an impact on our world. Stepping beyond the invisible comfort zone. Living in each moment in movement, not in stillness, in loudness, not in silence, in passion, not in regret.  So that when we’re dead . . . they’ll know we’ve been here.

Own it. And GO. Move.