While I cope with hereditary angioedema, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and other conditions, I’ve also been touched by a less rare condition that’s not a disease: autism. The first time I learned about autism, I was in college studying for my education degree. I took a psychology course that mentioned…

Everyone gets tired sometimes. Some of us, especially when we push ourselves, become fatigued. And especially with rare diseases, many of us truly understand exhaustion. In today’s vernacular filled with sarcasm, we frequently hear people, even children, say, “I’m exhausted!” While the words are interchangeable according to Merriam-Webster, terms used…

“So what are your symptoms?” is always the doctor’s first question. But which of my symptoms stem from hereditary angioedema (HAE), and which are caused by my many other health conditions? It took most of my life to get diagnosed with HAE. As a kid, I had horrible reactions…

It’s one of Kristen Wiig’s most memorable “Saturday Night Live” characters and probably one of her most relatable. During her seven-year tenure as a cast member on the show, Wiig popularized a hilarious and slightly annoying character named Penelope. The sketches’ premise was pretty simple: During a seemingly innocuous gathering,…

My screenwriting class sat in stunned silence as they stared at the picture on the screen. Finally, light chuckles filtered through the room. “Whenever you think someone has already done it,” I said to them, “remember this picture.” On the screen was the infamous meme of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson…

“Are you OK?” my husband, Paul, asked, his voice laced with concern. The question seemed out of the blue and took me off guard. After a long day of work, running errands, and wrangling kids, I’d finally settled into bed to engage in my favorite downtime activity of watching crime…

“No!” my mom’s voice bellowed. I immediately laughed. I couldn’t see her, but I heard the undertone of laughter in my mother’s voice. She was answering — or wasn’t — my very loud “Hey, Ma!” from another room in the house. Because we were a few weeks away from my…

I spent years trying to catch the actual “pop.” Around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, my father was known for slow-roasting turkeys in the oven. He would meticulously clean and season them, place them in a special roasting bag with seasoned celery and carrot pieces, and cook them at the…

“Maybe chicken just tastes like everything else,” a person at our table responded. And as dramatic as it sounds, the entire table got quiet. In college, I had the privilege of making it into the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the 16-voice student group considered ambassadors for Fisk University. The…

“You all shut down the city for this?” a social media user asked. “We call this a regular day in Montana,” another chimed in. Around this time of year, those of us born and raised in the South are used to hearing Midwesterners or Northerners make fun of our “snow…