Take Chances – Make Mistakes

"Take chances, make mistakes. Sometimes it's important not to be perfect. It's important to do the wrong thing!..... To find out what's real and what's not, to find out what you feel. Human beings are terrible messes." ~ Portia, Bicentennial Man It's so true, we humans are a terrible mess. We make mistakes and do…

NUCCA – not your mama’s chiropractic

I've been seeing a chiropractic specialist for about 5 years. NUCCA doctors specialize and only adjust the atlas (the first vertebrae at the top of the neck). However they do it in a non-invasive manner that you honestly barely feel. There's no manual cracking, there's no twisting of the neck and back, there's no popping…

Pressure System Release

"Every pressurized system needs a relief valve. There has to be a way to reduce the stress, the tension....there has to be a way to find relief, because if the pressure doesn’t find a way out, it will make one. It will explode. It’s the pressure we put on ourselves that’s the hardest to bear.…

90 MPH to 0 in 2 Seconds Flat

I think the most misunderstood component of Lyme+ is the way we appear to be doing fairly well one second and suddenly we are crawling into bed for a week long crash. "But you were doing so well! What happened?" "What did you do that made you get sick again?" "Is she faking it?" All…

Disturbed – The Sounds of Silence

Simon & Garfunkel's famous song has always touched my soul, but it wasn't until I was watching figure skaters Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres performing to a remake that I fell in love with the depth and sentiment of the lyrics. I am a talker. I love to talk, I think it's important in any…

Apollo 13 – what events may transpire

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the return of the Apollo 13 astronauts to earth. So, in true Hollywood form, there have been documentaries and space movies on all day - and in true Shawn form, the stories have me comparing chronic sickness to the "successful failures" of space travel. In all these stories, there…

Daring Greatly — the battle over shame

Brene Browns best seller, Daring Greatly, is one of about a dozen books I flip back and forth between. But today I realized several of these books I've chosen have a similar underlying theme - shame. Shame affects every one of us, and yet we choose to pretend it doesn't exist. It affects the way…

How Can I Help

Max Goodwin, the Medical Director of New Amsterdam Hospital (yes, another tv reference) when faced with employees who are frustrated and complaining, asks one question: "How can I help?" In these chaotic and somewhat frustrating times, it's so easy to get sucked into debates about statistics and get frustrated with the way people are (or…

The Next Thing

I started a new therapy to try to address Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. There's always a level of excitedment that comes with new treatment protocols. I want to be hopeful, and I felt the effects of the first dose almost immediately so that hope is definitely on the rise. BUT there is also a level…

Give Yourself a Break

I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and thinking about this blog post. My head was hurting so much but I was pushing through the pain to simply get the job done when the irony hit me - here I am mentally writing a post encouraging people to stop over-doing, while I'm over-doing…