"The Doctor and his Patient" by Jan Steen

I found it!  Ever since I saw Dr. Grubb last April, I have been searching for this painting.  Dr. Grubb had showed me this painting to illustrate how he believes this patient could be a patient with EDS type 3 and POTS.  This painting is from the Dutch realism period, and was painted by Jan Steen in the 1600’s.  The Dutch Realism period was a period when artists began to paint real life…even sick people. 

I was excited to login to my blog, and see a personal note from Dr. Driscoll herself about the progress, and developments of her research.  Dr. Driscoll is a zebra herself who devotes so much of her time advocating for, and researching various diseases and the possible connections between the diseases of Multiple Sclerosis, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTS, and CCSVI, to name a few… 

A few weeks ago, my roommate and teammate from college sent me a Facebook message.  At the time she was 9 months pregnant, and still working as a nurse, which makes the fact that she took the time out of her life to write me such a special letter even more meaningful

(Sidenote: She had her baby TODAY! Congrats, Dana and John!) 

This survey has been circulating around FB and the Blogosphere…So in honor of promoting Invisible Illness Awareness I, too, am jumping on the bandwagon.

1. The illnesses I live with are: Dysautonomia/POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Type 2/3.

2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 2010

As you can see, I did not write the piece below.  I wanted to post it though, because I find it to be a brilliant description of learning to live life with a chronic illness. 

Each time I read the following piece, I think about my specialists (especially Dr. Grubb and Dr. Lavallee) who are encouraging me to tame my gorilla.