Crohn's Chronicles: A blog about Crohn's Disease

Alright folks, something really and truly exciting is in the works over here. I've been asked to contribute to this really awesome new channel that will center solely around Crohn's Disease. WEGO Health  is this really amazing online community and they're currently launching a series of channels that deal with different diseases/illnesses/ect. For those of you who aren’t familiar with WEGO Health, they’re a different kind of social media company – with a mission to empower the top 10% of online health social media contributors to connect with one another and with healthcare companies. They call those folks Health Activists – but they’re people like me and you who are community leaders, bloggers, on Facebook, on Twitter, leading online forums, and usually “all of the above.” As part of their mission, WEGO Health has recently launched a new Health Activist video platform called WEGOHealth.tv where they are presenting the authentic voice of the online community in the form...

I went to this panel/performance at Access Living  last Friday. It was on the intersections between disability, race and community. Very interesting. There was one thing that the moderator said, though, that really struck me. It's something I've read and taken note of before, but for some reason hearing it in this context really drove the point home. He made the point that disability and disease challenge the idea of "the individual." In American society, we're pretty much taught to take care of ourselves. Individualism is extremely important to the way we conceptualize our bodies and our minds. The "I" is at the center of the American dream. If I work hard and educate myself, I can rise through the ranks of society. So, what happens to this concept when a body must depend on others to perform certain tasks, or even to make it through the day? This is more of an issue for some types of disability than others. With Crohn's, for instance, as long a...