NHBPM #26: Steph's "more than 24 hours in a day" entry

I know that Tiffany just posted about what she would do if there were more than 24 hours in a day, and I loved it so much, I had to chime in. (Warning- I copied a few of hers) The good news is that when I ponder this question, I realize how many interests and passions I have that are life-giving. The bad news is that they can get put on the back burner easily if I am not intentional about them.

1) Travel more- I love traveling and have been to Africa twice, backpacked all across Europe, and am determined to hit all the continents eventually. I'd love to go to Australia/New Zealand next.

2) Write a book. I'd love to write an auto-biography, as I have a plethora of stories from this adventurous life of mine. From getting bit by one of my special education students in CPS, to picking up hitchhikers on the way to the grand canyon, to working as the drive-thru girl for a summer...I've got stories to tell.

3) Take a ceramics class. I did this in high school and would love to learn the wheel. Oh, and while I'm at it, I'd do a photography class as well as I loved the darkroom back in the day.

4) Get my PhD. This would require a huge amount of money as well, but I would love to get my PhD in health psych. For now, I would settle for more time to go to professional development.

5) Brush up on American Sign Language so that I am fluent again. I took it two years in college and would love to be a bilingual therapist.

6) Use my blender daily- I was fortunate enough to receive a Vitamix blender last year for the holidays and love it! It came with a whole book of recipes and if I had more time, I'd make one each day. Soups, smoothies, dips, ice cream...

7) Get a dog. If I had all the time in the world, I would have a dog, go on daily walks, and still have time for all the things in my life. Right now, I'm settling for a cat as I run around between my different offices.

8) Get certified in art therapy or life coaching.

9) Organize all my photos, from birth until now. A pretty daunting task, but it would feel so great.

10) Go on a Mindfulness weekend retreat and lead them for my patients.

So You Have IBD During a Pandemic

Hey! What's going on? Been pretty boring over here in Chicago. Ok I don't need to elaborate on what the hell is going on in the world. We are being bombarded with information - some accurate, a lot inaccurate - about this pandemic. It's very easy to become completely overwhelmed by it all. We've been forced, pretty damn quickly, to completely overhaul our way of life for the greater good. To reduce the strain on our healthcare system of the sick and dying. And us humans are generally bad with rapid, monumental change that we really don't have a lot of say in. Our little reptilian brains do what they're supposed to do (prime us for fight or flight or freeze) but our advanced "thinking" parts of our brain have to interject with all sorts of unhelpful thoughts, thereby sending some of us off the rails. Before we start, turn off the news. Seriously. In the days following 9-11 we found people who consumed more 24-hour news channel information were mor

Psychosocial aspects of having an ostomy

This past Saturday, Tiffany and I had the honor of speaking at the United Ostomy Associations of America's Regional Midwest conference. I was assigned the task of speaking to the patients, and Tiffany addressed the partners or caregivers. I wanted to share with you some of the highlights from my talk. I only had an hour for my session, and with about 100 people in the room, it was not nearly enough time. I love bullet points, so here you go: We are all different! Every ostomate is different and not one size fits all for the emotional/mental aspect either. Who had months to talk about an ostomy and weigh pros/cons? Who was this a more sudden decision for? Who had cancer? Who had IBD? Something else? Who had an ileostomy? colostomy? urostomy? Who has a temporary? Permanent? Multiple temporaries? What age where you when you got your ostomy? Under 20, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60+ Who was single when they got their ostomy? With a serious partner when they had it? Some find a stom

IBD & Medical Trauma

Medical trauma is such an under-recognized issue for the chronnically ill. It's a hard topic to talk about because it can seem like we are pointing fingers at healthcare workers. Maybe that's why there are only, now, 4 studies on the topic in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). If you are someone who treats people with IBD please know I am not here to demonize or criticize. I am both a patient and a GI psychologist. I know the medical system from both sides. I know how messed up and broken it is. But ignoring this or rationalizing it away as only affecting a few folks is wrong. So let's talk about it. Post-traumatic stress (PTS) is the term we use for medical trauma due to technicalities in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTS can be less severe that full on PTSD, or it can be full on PTSD. Regardless, the symptoms are identical: Feeling hypervigilant/on-edge (increased

Mind Your Body

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