Just Keep Swimming — Janneke Phung

Since I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) in October 2019, my symptoms have significantly diminished, thanks to diet and lifestyle modifications. But several years ago, despite my being a morning person, there wasn’t a chance I could’ve woken up, hopped out of bed, and started my…

“I have been diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis.” That simple statement comes with extremely powerful emotions that can often feel contradictory. When my family doctor revealed that the results of a recent MRI showed evidence of ankylosing spondylitis (AS), the two main emotions I felt were relief and fear.

“Oh, no! We forgot to burp the carrots today!” my 5-year-old son exclaimed with alarm as we waited to see the chiropractor. The appointment was a little break from our morning home-schooling routine. I looked over at him, chuckled as I saw a sticker on his forehead that read…

I hopped off the chairlift, making sure to get out of its way before it swung around the corner and had a chance to knock me over on its way back down. My 8-year-old son, who had learned to ski mere hours earlier, was already waiting for me and coaxing…

“Would you mind doing a survey?” the doctor asked me. “We are doing some research into how and at what speed ankylosing spondylitis progresses in the average patient.” As someone diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), I understand the importance of increasing knowledge about this relatively rare disease. I…

If you asked me which complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies I’ve found most helpful for managing my ankylosing spondylitis (AS), I’d tell you diet and chiropractic care, hands down. Desperate for relief before receiving an AS diagnosis, I dabbled with various forms of complementary care. Finding pain…

My three boys down the hallway and my husband next to me were off in dreamland. The occasional rumble of a passing car and the shadows on the walls from the streetlights were hardly noticeable. My thoughts centered on how I could manage the beast inside my body. Although the…

As I lay in bed, I heard the wind howling. With every gust, I felt the house shaking just a little bit. The cold, almost icy drops of rain pounded hard against the window. The previously crisp and colorful fall leaves, now soggy and dead, disintegrated as they fluttered to…

“Hey, did you know that redheads feel pain differently?” I asked my husband after stumbling upon some research earlier in the day. As a redhead who’s often experienced all sorts of pain, I wondered if my redheadedness was to blame for my constant ailments. My ankylosing spondylitis (AS) symptoms…

The statements “I have ankylosing spondylitis” and “I feel great!” hardly seem to go together. But for me, they do. That wasn’t always the case. In a previous column, I described my nightly struggle with this invisible illness. I had nights when I couldn’t pick my twin infants up…

“I love you, dud!” I hollered after my 3-year-old son as he blissfully skipped back to play with his brothers. (It’s unfortunate that while I had meant to say, “I love you, bud!” or “I love you, darling!” it had come out as a rather unflattering mixture of the two…

Have you ever felt like you drew the short end of the stick in life? Do other people seem to have more reasons to be joyful than you do? When we are diagnosed with an incurable and progressive disease it can feel unfair. Sometimes we may wonder if a…