I'm a lucid dreamer. That means I am often aware that I'm in a dream and can go so far as to manipulate the ending of a nightmare in my favor. I also usually remember my dreams, a skill not everyone has, so most mornings after waking, I recap the intricate movie that played out in my sleep. They say this is a trainable cognitive skill, but I've always thought I was born with it. I've written in the past about how it took me years to dream that I was an amputee, like my mind couldn't wrap around the fact that my right leg was gone…

Developing a disability is a quick way to notice just how different you look from others, but the truth is, one leg or two, we all do it. We measure so much of our worth by comparing ourselves to people who are living completely different lives…

This week marks four years since the start of this blog. When I wrote the first post, I was excited to have a safe space to tell you all what it's like to be me. I was looking forward to sharing all of my milestones and bringing awareness to a rare form of osteosarcoma and the disabled experience. I needed an outlet separate from the rest of my support system. It was right here, with all of you, that I found just what I needed…

've always found the expression "carrying around dead weight" odd. What does it mean? I watch too much true crime, so I can't help but associate it with murder when I hear it. Recently, I heard someone use it to refer to something that no longer served them, and they needed to part with. (likely the more common and less morbid association to make)…

I was recently asked what advice I might give someone new to limb loss, and boy did it take me back in time. It's only been four years, but it feels like a lifetime ago. This experience has changed me in ways that I never imagined it would, and as long as the days of waiting until I was healed enough to walk on a prosthesis were, the change within me happened fast, and I could not be more grateful to have found my inner strength just in time to fight like hell…

Every amputee has thrown a prosthetic leg, a shoe, or some sort of assistive device across a room in frustration. If they haven't, it's only because it was too heavy to throw or too expensive to risk breaking. And if you were aware enough to consider that last factor, you are smarter than I am. Frustration is a natural feeling and releasing it can be healing…

You had cancer, and now you don't, or it's being managed with the right medications. You wake up to a strange rash or new pain. Do you instantly panic and assume it has to be something serious? Because, I mean, you've had cancer, so it's not like you're in the ninety-ninth percentile of people who get the weird symptom, and it turns out to be nothing. It would be easy and quite understandable for you to turn a bug bite into lymphoma in your mind. So, how do you keep from making a mountain out of a molehill? …

Every year that passes, I get more and more comfortable with my disabled body and what it takes to keep it moving. It's a gift really, getting to spend years with this body that survived cancer twice. Learning to love it for all it's gotten me through. When December thirty first comes around, I see it a little differently than I once did. I could make a million New Year's resolutions influenced by the targeted ads on my social media accounts, but I doubt a single one of them would give me any kind of sustained happiness. They never did in the past. So, I prefer to set intentions…

If you're reading this the day it was released, Merry Christmas Eve. I hope you are full of holiday sparkle and coquito. But if you're not, because you're having one of those Decembers where you feel like the last, lonely gingerbread house on the shelf, cracked all over and hanging on by a stitch of icing, you aren't alone. There is so much pressure to have a perfect Christmas, but the truth is most Christmases aren't perfect at all, and some, well, some suck…

Last Sunday, there was no blog. I couldn't quite find the words to say what was on my mind because you were gone. And no amount of knowing it was coming was enough to soften the blow. My cheerleader, who faithfully read all my blog posts and held me as I cried before surgery, my aunt, was taken away from us by the one thing I wish never tied us together…

If you're in a funk or a biopsy waiting period, you might want to try a little something called dopamine decorating. The latest feel-good at home trend might be just what you need to distract yourself with a project and create a space with healing, happy energy. Now that the Holidays are here, it's the perfect time to top that Christmas tree with a disco ball instead of the same plain star you use every year…

Do you ever find yourself wandering happily through your day just to be slapped with an alarming reminder of your trauma in the form of a hospital hand soap smell or a strange-toned voicemail from your doctor? Like you almost forgot you've been through hell when suddenly it gets a little too hot in the room, and you are triggered…