Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Here’s Why I Endorsed Elizabeth Warren for President

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My entrance into hands-on political engagement began in 2008.

President Barack Obama was the first president I could vote for after I turned 18. I volunteered for him in both 2008 & 2012 & shook his hand at a rally a week before the 2008 election. His hand was soft & wrinkly & thin. I didn’t wash my hand for a week for good luck (ok, yes, I know that’s gross).

I was about to shake Obama’s hand. That’s my forehead in the foreground. I still have those eyeglasses just because I’m bad at getting rid of old pairs of glasses.
Me at an Obama campaign office in Raleigh, NC in 2008 with a sign I made

I grew up overhearing whispers about President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, his iconic, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” soundbite & then the grumbling about President George W. Bush’s “nuke-yule-er” pronunciation & his politics.

Obama restored my patriotism. I remember wanting to be a proud American again during his campaign and after his first election.

In college (2007 – 2008) I researched media portrayal of US womxn running for President & Vice President. There were only four to research: Shirley Chisholm (#BlackHistory), Geraldine Ferraro, Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton. Since then, the number of womxn who’ve viably run for president has more than doubled.

For me, since college, jobs, moves across the country & buying my house; I’ve continued to be politically involved in different ways.

Since being diagnosed with AS, a debilitating progressive disease (watch my TEDx talk about it), I’ve seen a lot of politics via my healthcare advocacy/activism on local, state, & federal levels.

I know how politics work on the inside, from the outside, is what I’m saying. Continue reading Here’s Why I Endorsed Elizabeth Warren for President →

#sickbody, Advocacy, chronic disease, chronic pain, Current Events, Healthcare, opioid, Patient Advocacy, Politics, sickness

Dear Prescription Opioid Debaters:

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Dear debaters,

I am a 30 year old who inherited a lifelong inflammatory disease called ankylosing spondylitis (AS). AS can cause the spine to fuse together from bone spurs and can affect organs and other joints. AS causes significant pain, to put it lightly.

I am also a former college athlete and marathoner. I know what it means to push through pain as an athlete. But I cannot push through the pain caused by my disease. Pushing through it causes the disease to progress and the pain to increase.

My main treatment is a drug made from living cells (the same class of drugs that treats many cancers); it helps slow the progression of my disease. Because this treatment is [finally!] working, it also reduces some of the worst symptoms. But AS is a severe disease with no cure, so even with this specialty drug I still have plenty of pain.

And, like millions of chronic pain patients who fight simply to survive daily, I’ve tried everything to control the pain. Continue reading Dear Prescription Opioid Debaters: →

Advocacy, ankylosing spondylitis, chronic disease, chronic pain, Current Events, disability, Health Insurance, Healthcare, Medi-Cal, Medicaid, Patient Advocacy, Politics, public speaking, spondylitis, spondyloarthritis

I Told My Healthcare Story at a Press Conference Today

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Today, Congresswoman Doris Matsui hosted a press conference in Sacramento in response to the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill. I was invited to share my healthcare story as a Chronic Disease Patient Advocate alongside several elected officials in attendance, including the Congresswoman, California State Senator Dr. Richard Pan, California State Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, and Councilmember Angelique Ashby.

Two leaders
Charis Hill and Congresswoman Doris Matsui

These were my remarks:

Continue reading I Told My Healthcare Story at a Press Conference Today →

#sickbody, Advocacy, ankylosing spondylitis, Arthritis, Charis, chronic disease, chronic pain, disability, Health Insurance, Healthcare, Medi-Cal, Medicaid, Mental Illness, open letter, Patient Advocacy, Politics, spondylitis, spondyloarthritis

An Open Letter to Congress from a Poor, Disabled American

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Dear Congress,

My father died last September. He was 68. He experienced severe, debilitating pain from his early teenage years until his death. I now experience similar pain from the same disease he had, Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), and I fear daily that my life will follow the same path his did.

My dad looked like this (below) because he did not have access from a young age to effective treatments to slow down the progression of his disease:

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He didn’t have access to the treatments because they didn’t exist until 2003, when the first biologic drug was approved for treating patients with AS. By that time he was already a 90-degree hunchback, his spine fused in a rigid column of bone from knobby, painful bone spurs – he was slowly suffocating. The only thing a biologic drug could do was prolong his life and perhaps reduce some of the symptoms.

He died after two surgeries meant to straighten his spine, relieve his organs from being crushed, and give him a more horizontal line of sight. He’d been looking straight down at the ground for decades, unable to see in front of him unless he pivoted his body backwards with one foot pushed toe-first into the ground.

I learned I had AS in 2013 after a period of sudden, un-treatable illnesses that left me in pain and unable to breathe. Urgent Care doctors blamed my frequent visits on panic attacks and attempted to send me on my way with anxiety medication, but I knew my body better than that. Continue reading An Open Letter to Congress from a Poor, Disabled American →