Sickish but Good - Should I Teach an Online Class this Summer?
I'm sick & so is the world but I'm also ok. Want to study movement strategies with me over the summer?
Welcome
Welcome to a bunch of new subscribers. I’m a chronically ill and disabled queer trans person with a long activist history who is currently in grad school writing a memoir and other things.
Many recent subscribers found your way here from Scot Nakagawa’s excellent newsletter. If you haven’t seen Scot’s newsletter before, please check it out:
FRIDAY: Science in the Crosshairs webinar
And for those of you of an anti-authoritarian bent (all of you, I’d assume), here’s an upcoming webinar that may interest you THIS FRIDAY. It’s organized by my beloved Jim Pickett and moderated by the charming and fierce Matthew Rose. We’re encouraged to register even if we can’t attend as they’ll send the materials to us all:
https://avac-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/57lb6op7TuGhMzxUM-7IdAPlease join AVAC, The Choice Agenda, and partners for a critical conversation on the escalating threats to health research and equity-centered science. This webinar will unpack the implications of the proposed FY26 U.S. federal budget—which includes sweeping cuts to NIH, CDC, USAID, and the elimination of vital global and minority health research programs. Together, we’ll explore what these attacks mean for communities, researchers, and implementers—both in the U.S. and globally—and identify actionable advocacy strategies to fight back.
Date: Friday, May 9, 2024Time: 9am to 10:30 AM Eastern TimeRegister now: https://avac-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/57lb6op7TuGhMzxUM-7IdA
Moderator:
Matthew Rose, Human Rights Campaign
Speakers:
Richard Jeffrys, TAG
Lizzy Lovinger, TAG
John Meade, AVAC
[in formation]
Matthew Rose, Human Rights Campaign
Speakers:
Richard Jeffrys, TAG
Lizzy Lovinger, TAG
John Meade, AVAC
[in formation]
POLL: Resistance Movement Strategies Class
Speaking of resistance, I’m thinking of hosting a 6 session online class over the summer. It will focus on movement strategies and tactics, from the pragmatic details (getting people to do stuff and good facilitation tricks for meetings) to the overarching strategic components like alliances, communications and messaging, and more.
I’ll co-create the curriculum with those who enroll. As with all I do, I would draw on historical examples from ACT UP and other movement groups as well as analyzing anything that may be working or potentially working today. (To learn more about who the hell I am, you can check out my LinkedIn profile or my secret consulting site or just search around).
There will be excellent guest speakers, and each participant will be offered office hours with me to strategize further. For those for whom live video is not accessible, I would also offer a fully asynchronous option (watching videos, listening to audio and/or reading transcript, and submitting questions in writing or audio that I’d answer, etc.) And you’ll get a certificate at the end!
This would be my paid work priority for the summer — so I need to assess if there are enough people who would either enroll OR sponsor the enrollment of others so I can raise at least $6000 for this.
Here’s a poll to help suss that out, thanks! You can also post a comment below or DM me.
I’ve also put a link in case you are in a position to support my work overall and would like to make a contribution. I’m going to keep doing that — always optional of course. All my posts are fully public.
Illder Update: A Return to Queasy Creates a Quandary.
For those of you who have been with me a while, you know I often post updates that may shed some light on or offer commiseration with the day-to-day realities of chronic illness…. f you’re not here for the musings and stories of an illder (chronically ill and disabled queer), you can stop reading here. Otherwise, here’s some updates from me, on me, on the illder life:
content warning: nausea and public vomiting.
I’m not on the subway right now. That’s not all that surprising, as I don’t spend most of my time on it — but a bit of a bummer…
Since January, on Wednesdays before two grad school classes, I’ve often been able to go to one of my favorite therapeutic back care yoga teacher’s onsite class. I mask with a N95 and put my mat by an open window.
They also have a FREE and HYBRID adaptive class for people with chronic illness and disabilities, so let anyone know who may be interested.
t feels amazing to be back there, and I’m extremely grateful that the studio is still running a full set of online classes - I take 34- most weeks and feel it’s essential in doing as well as I am doing (but please, DO NOT be that person who suggests yoga to chronically ill or disabled people, just don’t. I can assure you someone already has.)
But I have been going through it again with my health shit.
Why? Maybe it’s some combination of everything:
very bad allergy season,
forgetting to put probiotics in my two week container of pills three weeks ago,
trying to up my Lexapro dose because the world,
enjoying occasional 1/2 caff-Americano coffee drink but going out of town and having it black instead of with oat or almond milks where I was staying,
fascism,
who knows what else,
and/or nothing because chronically illness, right?!?
This isn’t entirely bad news.
It has made me realize that I haven’t been going through it as much for a pretty damn long time - at least as long as I’ve been in school which is September.
Now, let’s put this into context. This doesn’t mean I’m not sick.
I’m always sick, and I’m always on 40+ kinds of prescription, over the counter, and/or compounded pills, injectable meds, tinctures and whatnot to strive to stay in this sick-but-ok state.
And as I type this, I realize it’s not even true that I haven’t been feeling bad that long.
I’d forgotten had a stretch of time in the late fall where I was throwing up every day unless I took the miraculous drug ondansetron. Which you’re not supposed to take every day because of something about heart risks which is a pretty bad thing to risk.
It’s just that that bout of awfulness mostly happened when I was off from school so I didn’t notice the change in my routine. By the time I threw up blood (yikes), it was winter break so taking a day to get an endoscopy, for example, didn’t make me miss classes or whatnot.
I went on a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) and stopped taking THC edibles at night and that seemed to help a lot. So much that I got ambitious and made it a new year’s resolution to 1) drink coffee and 2) eat pie.
And then, three weeks ago, I landed back in queasy land. Fuck. At least I got to have some pie first.
I went back on the PPI yesterday and then I threw up again right after. Maybe because of it, so that’s a quandary. This morning I woke up woozy and just couldn’t get it together fast enough to get out of the house to make the yoga class.
So this is what I mean when I say I am sick and I am doing well. I didn’t even remember that I went through a whole series of things last fall, because I’ve gotten so used to these patterns and ups and downs, and fortunately they are more rare and less severe than before.
This makes me a unicorn, not a typical person with Long COVID or other conditions like this. But it also does speak to how it is possible for some of us to do ok over time, if we have the privilege to rest and do what we learn are the priorities for staying as well as possible (and if we have some luck, because some people will have all those things and not get better or not do well.)
But I’m not sure if I can make it to my two classes today - and that means I need to do a check in with myself about internalized ableism…
I have accommodations for grad school that include being able to attend classes on video. In my classes, other students are then also able to attend by Zoom when they are sick or away - yet another example of how accommodations help everyone.
If you’d like to look at my accommodations letter, I’m happy to share - just DM me.
I have been enjoying being able to be there onsite most of the time, even though it’s frustrating when there’s inconsistency about my other accommodations. Each professor is supposed to offer masks to the class (without outing me as the source of the request, but everyone pretty much knows of course), and it’s really been slipping away as the semester goes on as far as the offers and the uptake.
Except shout out to professor Red Washburn — who has been a total champ at the mask stuff and encouraging people to come on Zoom if sick, etc. — and professor Sara Gómez Woolley — who got us into one of the rare rooms at the school that has actual windows that actually open!
The school has this impressive Owl gadget for “immersive hybrid meetings” that improves Zoom audio and video but it can be cumbersome to set up… so in the meantime class goes on while they wait for the A/V person to figure it out or depend on helpful students to puzzle it out. It’s… frustrating.
Thus my reluctance to go via Zoom is both practical - knowing that the set up may not go smoothly — and judgmental, as part of me thinks I am failing if I use this accommodation. Given that self-criticism is one of the primary signs of onset of my fatigue, this can get pretty fucking swirly.
Figuring out if I can hack a 45-60 minute subway commute can feel like a relatively high stakes decision, given a recent experience with, well, throwing up in a N95 mask on the subway.
As you may imagine, that’s unpleasant, to say the least. And in a frustrating example of first world / privileged illder problems, it also lead to losing one of the expensive noise-cancelling earbuds I depend on for reducing sensory challenges that can exacerbate my symptoms if I don’t use them on the subway and these loud streets of NYC.
So let’s do the check-in that I need to do to deal with this, and to decide if I’m going onsite or staying home…
Took ondansetron. Check.
Wrote to the cardiologist to get more input about if I’m fucking myself over by taking ondansetron. Check.
Remember the cardiologist is awesome but lousy at using MyChart. Check.
Make virtual appointment with cardiologist. Check.
Drink iced Americano with almond milk. Check.
Reschedule the tasks to do that I didn’t do yesterday that I was going to do this morning that I didn’t do this morning because I had to rest. Check.
So how do I feel right now?
My eyes are heavy (fatigue) but not as bad as this morning before meds and caffeine.
I’m dizzy and queasy but it’s a 2-3 on the 1-10 scale, not 5 or more.
Achy when I walk and when I sit and when I type. Yep.
Ate food and it felt ok… not great but not terrible. I have burped like 10 times from one scone.
As usual, wondering what this means long term, is there point of no return from GERD?
As per recent years, wondering which meds I might not be able to access soon/in future. Reach usual conclusion that there’s no way to know and nothing to do at this particular moment.
What’s it like outside? Not raining! Warm but not hot! Sunny!
Ok, I guess I’ll go unless I run out of steam or feel too lousy as I pack my backpack to get out of here.
Fucking hell, this is such a boring post.
If you’ve made it this far, I applaud you for accompanying me on the drudgeries of illder life. It may be meandering and dull, but that’s the point. That’s what it’s like. When I’m hard on myself for not writing every day, for not having published, for not reaching my goals, that’s what I need to remember.
Welcome to the best case scenario from someone who is sick but not too sick, who has resources and medical access, stable housing and family/community support. Dull is a privilege.