A Better Way Not Just Another

How to Navigate Endometriosis in an Unhealthy Medical System – Part 3: Post-Surgery Disappointment & Symptom Management

This tripartite series is dedicated to those exhausted by mulish medical issues. Part 1 demystified the diagnosis dilemma; Part 2 provided time-saving tips for health insurer evasion and brought order to medical bill madness. In Part 3, we’ll explore post-surgery disappointment and symptom management. At the first postoperative visit after my endometriosis surgery, the surgeon …

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A Better Way Not Just Another

How to Navigate Endometriosis in an Unhealthy Medical System – Part 2: Health Insurer Evasion & Medical Bill Madness

Preparing for medical costs and correcting errant medical bills shouldn’t be a full-time job. I’ll provide tips to navigate the process, so you can save inordinate amounts of time. After: I can empathize with medical bill madness. Even with multiple calls, escalations and diligent documentation, my health insurer and providers caused me to fall into …

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A Better Way Not Just Another

How to Navigate Endometriosis in an Unhealthy Medical System – Part 1: Diagnosis Dilemma

Is any of the following familiar? If any of these exasperating experiences are familiar, in this series, I offer empathy and tips to navigate an unhealthy medical system. In part 1, I discuss diagnosis hurdles and empowering, experience-based propellors to clarity. In upcoming posts, I’ll focus on easing health insurer and medical bill uncertainties, as …

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A Better Way

Thrifty Ways to Use Natural, Personal Care Products

Save money, save space, and you may save your health.  This week, my content detours. Through substantial time and effort, I’ve discovered ways to simultaneously improve my wallet and health, while minimizing the number of products in my home. I couldn’t resist sharing successful (at least, for me), nontoxic options to help you avoid the …

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A Better Way Not Just Another

Mirror, Mirror

App, app on my phone, like my pic, so I can hear a nice tone. Those likes and, less so for me, the mirror, whisper a tempting idea: it’s not entirely hopeless to strive to be fairer than I actually am. Fairer seems to equal more attention, acceptance and influence. Women put their looks to …

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A Better Way

Is Christianity Compatible with Self-Help?

Self-help is a self-sought, self-taught and self-implemented solution. Following Christ, unlike any other remedy, philosophy or religion, is the lasting foundation to help yourself — every day, with any problem. Only Christ offers fearless pursuit of reality and freedom to change.  The Subtle Misrepresentation of Self-help, in its Purist Form: Trusting in Yourself Marketers’ mantra …

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A Better Way The Single Life

For Jane

Sometimes, what you don’t have the courage to say haunts you. My vocal cowardice creeks and wakes me. I’ve woken to a nagging, uninvited guest, but I knew the outline of its misshapen face. My passive silence etched its ugly features, which, although air, somehow revealed the solid form of my own weakness.  Perhaps, my …

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Some Letters Together

A Hostage to Time

Time, where does it flee? I can’t seem to catch it; the clock’s open hands play a trick on me. Time unforgivingly commands, and I listen. Face down and submissive,I march to its dictatorial beat. Why does time, unbending, control me? Why aren’t I in the lead? Time holds me hostage, no matter the plea. …

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Some Letters Together

Light of the Word

What is it about these pagesthat trap ink, and, yet, free me? They listen without judgment and instruct without decree. These pages absorb my mind’s heavy blows with ease.To them, my turbulent thoughts are air. I’m sure it’s for good, my naked thoughts are stripped by that which does not care.   These vaulted pages release my inner darkness;my soul …

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Not Just Another

For My Parents

At the close of 2021 and in early 2022, a morbid motif flickered before me, but I wanted to ignore its ragged fragments. Eight colleagues or friends lost a parent from various causes. Two, from different families, died the same day. As this sorrowful theme was unfolding, my friend and I went on a walk. …

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