2016
A man suffering a family loss enrolls in a class about care-giving that changes his perspective on life.
97 min
CLEAR ALL
Early in her career, Katie Pryal learned that being a professor isn’t easy if your brain isn’t quite right. “I was a junior in college when I finally realized that I was different in a way that my medically inclined parents would call ‘clinical.
When Dr. Arthur Kleinman, an eminent Harvard psychiatrist and social anthropologist, began caring for his wife, Joan, after she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, he found just how far the act of caregiving extended beyond the boundaries of medicine.
“If I didn’t fight, who would?” Judy Heumann was only 5 years old when she was first denied her right to attend school. Paralyzed from polio and raised by her Holocaust-surviving parents in New York City, Judy had a drive for equality that was instilled early in life.
When you look at me what do you see? Join Olivia as she explains her journey of having chronic illnesses. Olivia contextualizes her experience through spoon theory.
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Working with an autoimmune condition.
People are disabled in countless different ways, so there are few practical tips that will apply to everyone. Yet a few key things can improve your experience.
In the beginning, it was difficult to let myself rest, even with the ultimate doctor’s note. I felt like I still had to push past my (extremely limited) capabilities. I had to practice slowing down and allowing my frailties to become visible even when I had the choice to hide them.
I couldn’t keep “proving everyone wrong” and still do all the things I wanted to do with my life.
For some of the 61 million Americans with disabilities, the ability to work, learn and socialize from home has been an unexpected expansion of possibility.
We know that up to 90 percent of all individuals with MS report that they have experienced fatigue, and more than 50 percent admit it is their most disabling symptom. This “invisible symptom” is the most common cause of disability.