My three-year-old son had been offered junk food for what seemed like the millionth time in just a few days, and was looking at me with pleading eyes as if to say “pleeeeease Mum!?” The person offering him the glossy-on-the-outside, but empty-on-the-inside snack was doing it because they thought they were being nice. They wanted to make their time together special and (probably unconsciously) thought that the way to go about it was to give him a “treat.” The problem is that it wasn’t special, or a treat. It was crap. The ingredients on the label read more like a... Read full article »

I wish I had a time machine so I could go back 11 years ago when I was first diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. I wish I could bump into that 24-year-old version of me who was leaving a rheumatologists office in tears, having just been told she “probably has lupus,” that her immune system was attacking her own body, that there was no known cause and no known cure, that she had bad genes, and that she may end up in a wheelchair, with organ failure, or infertility. I wish I could tell her about this moment right now,... Read full article »