How to build your health team so that you get the support you need to improve your wellbeing

This post gives you seven positive tips that you can do to help you get the most from your health care team. It’s difficult to build a “team” when the team doesn’t communicate to each other, often have no idea they’re on the team, and there is no common understanding of how each player contributes to your wellbeing.

How to pace and protect your joints in the kitchen

Pacing helps to stop the boom and bust. For me my goal was trying to get dinner on the table for the kids without being exhausted and grumpy by the time I sat down to eat with them. Pacing improves the chances of us having a conversation at the table. I used two techniques toContinue reading “How to pace and protect your joints in the kitchen”

Laughter is the best medicine – crashes, falls and close calls on the sit ski

When we have a chronic illness or disability it can sometimes be difficult to just laugh and seek out things to enjoy. Getting by is hard enough, let alone trying to remember to laugh! I pulled together this footage me falling on the sit ski, in the hope that smashes and crashes might be interestingContinue reading “Laughter is the best medicine – crashes, falls and close calls on the sit ski”

How to build your chronic pain management plan

Chronic pain management needs a holistic approach working across many different therapies. It’s hard to work out who to see and why. This blog explains who to see and the reasons why.

Blokarts can be an inclusive sport for people with disabilities

Blokarting was an inclusive experience that worked for my disabled hands and feet. I enjoyed the speed and trying out a new sport.

Hiking poles: more stability and less pain so you can walk faster and longer

I view adaptive equipment like an athlete. Adaptive equipment will enable me to live life the way I want to. I don’t have to “bad enough” to use it. I use it because it enables me to do the things I want to do. Hiking poles make me feel like superman.

Heli Ski tips to help you get the most out of your first heli ski

It was the middle of our New Zealand lockdown and it was 8 April, our 20th wedding anniversary. We had planned an overseas trip in January, but couldn’t take it because my husband injured himself. The weekend he was finally cleared to drive, was the weekend New Zealand went into lockdown. We’d gone from oneContinue reading “Heli Ski tips to help you get the most out of your first heli ski”

Making Exercise Stick

For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve got a type of spondyloarthropathy, which is in my spine, hands and feet, arms and legs. It mostly affects my tendons, where they attach to the bones (enthesitis). I’ve had this disease for about 9 years. In the past, I often chose to rest on theContinue reading “Making Exercise Stick”

Heli-ski in a Sit Ski

Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Rumi Having something to inspire me helps me to cope. When my walls were closing in from chronic illness, I needed to have something positive in my life that kept my world open. For me, being filled up with positive emotions helps keep myContinue reading “Heli-ski in a Sit Ski”

Riding a Chairlift in a Sit Ski

Riding a Chairlift in a Sit Ski Making the invisible visible When I’m not riding my sit ski up the maunga (mountain), at first glance I look just like everyone else. It’s not until you spend time with me that you notice that my hands don’t work right or that I can’t stand for veryContinue reading “Riding a Chairlift in a Sit Ski”