Hello there, remember me? The person who allegedly writes this blog except has not been here since day 7 of a 31 day challenge, in which she just disappeared into thin air?

Hi, it’s me. Not dead. (Clearly there are many other internet-y ways to determine that I am not dead, so I don’t think this was a concern).

Where have I been?

Writing. Toronto for a few days in October. Writing. Goalball. Coaching. Failing Nanowrimo even though I built my best-yet support group (I hope Jordan, John, Marie and Sara did better than I!). Archery—I get to use a compound bow now and it’s effing awesome. Zurich. Yes, as in Switzerland. Watching too much Lockup on Netflix and Supersize vs. Superskinny on YouTube, and in the last few days, Josh Sundquist’s channel. Mostly Lockup in a distracting from writing fashion. Reading books with my ears. Taking in podcasts on the weirdness of America. So, I have very much been places—and covered a lot of ground both geographically and inside my brain—but that is about it. 

Oh, thanks to Amazon I am done close to half my Christmas shopping and it’s only December second. I have previously ordered a few choice items online, but between this and some random items I’ve picked up in previous months, I am half done, which is still not as good as the done I wanted to be by the end of November but whatever. I blame jet lag. 

Now, I feel like I am going to just finish this post off right here, and hopefully come at you soon with another post that is on one topic and not just a jumble from an ADHD brain, as this one is.

In 2018, I plan to try to drop by at least once a month. I don’t think that’s a stretch… But well, we’ll see. 😉

Today […yesterday, technically] is World Asthma Day. Much the same as at 12:05 AM, I have no riveting thoughts on this. I took my inhalers, I went to bed. I woke up, I took my inhalers, I went out. I took my inhalers before coaching, I came home, I went to the pharmacy and picked up more inhalers, and I’ll take medicine again before I go to bed.

And I wore this shirt that I wear one day a year.

World Asthma Day? It’s gotten boring. Just like this disease. I feel like the organizers aren’t putting the effort in, even. The theme has been “You can control your asthma” for as long as I can remember. Guess what? That hasn’t changed much either.

Maybe people with asthma would think differently about choosing to manage their disease, if they were given something to think about.  We need some fresh air, y’all. (Bad puns…)

Fortunately, I’ve got a fresh announcement to make up for that.

Asthma.net launched TODAY. 

Way back, I signed a blogging contract with Health-Union, LLC, which oversees Asthma.net. They took their time getting their ducks in a row—which is, as a contractor, super nice because since starting to submit work to them, everything has been SUPER ON THE BALL. I honestly do not have enough good things to say about working with them!

Asthma.net stands for the same things that I do: writing for Health-Union, I retain all credit for my work, and I get to choose my post topics—but, I have people to fall back on if I’m stuck for topics. And yes, of course, they pay me. Not only that, though, but they treat patients like experts—who knows our world better than we do, right? Health-Union has been at this awhile—and it’s clear they’ve done the work to get their relationships right.

Please, check it out. I highly recommend checking out other contributors as well, but here’s where you can find my posts.

…By the way, I freaked right out when I saw one of my posts as a featured post earlier. Whaaaaat.

https://i0.wp.com/farm8.staticflickr.com/7170/26712324942_47bafabeb9.jpg?resize=281%2C500&ssl=1

So, as I try (again) to write my patient story for our National Asthma Patient Alliance executive meeting in Toronto this weekend (again. I can only talk about myself so much… Said the blogger…), I’m reminded of the importance of our stories.

And I’m grateful that more and more organizations are seeing the importance of sharing patient stories in empowering patients, too.

Disclosure: I am provided per-piece compensation by Health-Union, LLC, for pieces I publish to Asthma.Net. Health-Union allows me full choice over what I contribute, as long as it falls within their guidelines (which are basically like, don’t be mean to people). I was not asked to write this post, nor was I ever asked to share Asthma.Net on social media.
I mean… If they googled me for all of 5 seconds they’d know I’d share anyways. But, they never asked me to.