In honor of Dysautonomia Awareness Month, we’re going to discuss dysautonomia and the ways it can present in different people, both on its own and in conjunction with other disorders.
What is dysautonomia, anyway? Well, it’s a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which tells you nothing unless you know a little bit about how the autonomic nervous system functions and what it does in the body. So let’s take this in two parts – what the autonomic nervous system does, and what things happen when it doesn’t do its job correctly.
Hello and welcome to episode 1 of season 2 of the podcast Tips and Tricks on How to be Sick.
I’m Eirenne and I will be your host as we talk about navigating the world as people with chronic illnesses, both physical and mental, disabilities, and the ways in which the world isn’t necessarily designed for us.
Before we begin, some administrative housekeeping and some thank yous are in order. Content note for the next bit: discussion of animal illness and death. Skip forward about 2 minutes if you need to avoid that.
This isn’t an episode of the podcast, not really. This is more of a side note and an apology for an unplanned three month hiatus.
Hello and welcome to NOT an episode of Tips and Tricks on How to be Sick.
I’m still Eirenne and I’m usually your host as we talk about navigating the world as people with chronic illnesses, both physical and mental, disabilities, and the ways in which the world isn’t necessarily designed for us. But this isn’t an episode of the podcast, not really. This is more of a side note and an apology for an unplanned three month hiatus.
Wait, how is it October already? I swear it was just the middle of July. You know that whole immunodeficiency thing? I kind of got sick, and then I got better, but not really. And then various things started flaring up and I was spending a lot of time sleeping and seeing doctors and different kinds of therapists. The remaining time that I was awake, I didn’t have enough available brain cells to string together long enough to do much of anything besides feed myself and my cats and maybe do the dishes or something.
So, suddenly it’s 3 months later and I haven’t put out a podcast episode since June! I’m very sorry about that. I’m especially sorry to Dr. Essary and Cheryl Green, my guests for July and August, because they expected to have their episodes done and up in a timely fashion for the interviews they gave me, and I dropped the ball. Again, I am very sorry about that.
I understand, intellectually, that I should be a little more compassionate with myself about this — the fact that this is a podcast for people with chronic illnesses and disabilities by someone with chronic illnesses and disabilities means that I may not necessarily always be able to keep to the same schedule and standard that I would like. The fact is, I am a single person who does this podcast; I write and record and interview and edit and post and transcribe, so if I’m not available to do it, it doesn’t get done. That means that if something like the last 3 months happens, this is the likely result. I don’t mean to drop the ball. I don’t mean to be unreliable. But there are occasions when I don’t have much other option, because as I’m sure everyone would agree, taking care of my physical and emotional self and my cats and my family has to take precedence over making a podcast.
I can’t promise this won’t happen again in the future, but what I can promise is to try and be better about posting on Twitter or just a blog post on the website or something to notify listeners that there is an unscheduled break coming up, rather than just going radio silent, save for the occasional retweet, or comments on my personal Twitter account when I’m lying awake in bed, not really able to do much anything, but still needing to feel connected to our community.
I have finally finished the transcription for what was to be July’s episode, an interview with Dr. Erica Essary about teletherapy and how it can benefit people with new onset disabilities or chronic illness diagnoses. I’m finishing the last audio edits today, and that episode will be live on Monday.
Thank you all for your patience. Now, let’s get back to some tips and tricks, shall we? And as a bonus, have some purring from my cat, Daphne.
Tips and Tricks on How to Be Sick 