No post on Friday due to birthday hangover. It was a great birthday but yesterday I got some lousy news, I’ve had to take a step back in my Physical Therapy due to recurring back pain.

My PT is a running expert and he’s informed me that I will not be […]

Hearts are special to me.  I’m the valentineRD because I’m born on Valentine’s Day.  Whether you like Valentine’s Day or not, hearts abound in February.  February is Heart Disease Awareness month.  You may have heard of the national “Go Red For Women” campaign to bring awareness to heart disease in women but my first guest poster, Rachael Faught, wants to tell you more about the significance of February 7th – 14th during American Heart Month.

I am more than honored that my friend Rachael has chosen to tell her story and let her dual worlds collide (she writes two very different blogs) here at thevalentineRD.

Greetings and salutations. I’m Rachael Faught and I run the food, travel and event blog Glass of Win. By trade, I am a writer – a good gig if and when I can get it. My career, however, is a long and arduous body of work; a life calling that has was thrust upon me at birth, nearly 31 years ago. I am a Professional Patient. I was born with the #1 birth defect in the world: a congenital heart defect. Transposition of the great arteries and ventricular septal defect with a heart that sits center-right stage (we’re kind of a showboat), to be precise. I am legally recognized as disabled, though you’d never know it by merely looking at me. Invisible Illnesses are tricky like that. Hence, invisibility.

Before the age of nine years old, I’d already underwent three open-heart surgeries. At the age of twenty-two, I went for the Jaime Sommers makeover and received a pacemaker. Everything is about maintenance at this stage. A tune up here, an oil change there.

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Image by pmecologic

Hi readers!

I don’t normally publish on Thursdays but I wanted to direct you over to my very first guest post for my friend, Mr. Pasadena.  He’s the social media mayor of Pasadena, CA […]

Image by Fuzzy Gerdes

For those that know me, I don’t usually curse but since today is World Cancer Day, I thought this picture (and sentiment) was more than appropriate.

A blogger I respect immensely, Wendy Nielsen, (a cancer survivor herself) brought it to my attention that the organization Stand Up To Cancer has designated today the day that people around the world join together and spread the message that we all stand for the end of cancer.

Cancer affects everyone and the repercussions are devastating.  My world turned upside down when I was 16 and lost my young stepmother.  I also had my own cancer scare myself in 2012 (read here and here).

There are 3 people connected to me that are fighting cancer right now and I wanted the world to know a little more about these brave people: […]