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Honored to be featured in Rare Revolution Magazine! chronic illness chronic migraine chronic pain disabled life mental health psychologist rare disease May 11, 2022

Dr. Melissa Geraghty Psy.D of Phoenix Rising with Dr. G

11 May 2022

Drawing on her own experience of rare disease Dr Melissa Geraghty is on a mission to provide mental health support to those with chronic illness and pain to ensure no one feels alone on their RARE journey.

RARE entrepreneur...

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The Keyboard Warriors will never Stop—but we can stop Reacting. chronic illness chronic pain disabled life mental health rare disease May 19, 2021

The Keyboard Warriors will never Stop—but we can stop Reacting.

I’ve seen a lot of personal attacks in some online communities, particularly in the chronic pain community.

I have been the brunt of this many times when people make assumptions about me off of a few 100 words. In some of...

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To the patient who wants to die: a psychologist’s perspective chronic illness chronic pain disabled life mental health rare disease suicide Apr 26, 2021

To the patient who wants to die: a psychologist’s perspective

I’ve been there. In my first two years of severe, chronic pain, I was right where you are at. I felt hopeless, mentally exhausted, and didn’t want to keep living with an extreme level of pain anymore. I felt there was...

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I Got COVID 9 Months Ago and Still Have Symptoms (Newsweek) chronic illness chronic pain covid disabled life neurosurgery rare disease Dec 16, 2020

My Turn

'I Got COVID 9 Months Ago and Still Have Symptoms'

Dr. Melissa Geraghty
On 12/2/20 at 5:51 AM EST

At the beginning of 2020, when COVID-19 was still only in the peripheries of our awareness, I was recovering from neurosurgery. I have a rare neurological disease, tethered cord syndrome,...

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Today marks the one year anniversary of my neurosurgery. chronic illness chronic pain disabled life neurosurgery rare disease Oct 07, 2020

Originally I had planned to publish a compilation of my experiences with tethered cord syndrome, rare disease diagnosis, neurosurgery, and CSF leak, in time for my one year anniversary. My body and mind are currently not up for this seemingly monumental task, so I will be brief.

I have mixed...

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Check your ableism. I’m not bragging. chronic illness chronic pain disabled life rare disease Sep 17, 2020

Written in 2017. Edited in 2020.

Each day I see more and more ableist attitudes. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have a word to describe this before, or maybe it’s because I have experienced so much ableist trauma that parts of my brain had to block it out. More likely it’s a...

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My body is an a$$hole. chronic illness chronic pain disabled life rare disease Sep 09, 2020

Posted on: Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Written on: Friday, July 24, 2020

My body is an asshole.

You read that correctly. Today is not a day where I am thankful for what my body can still do nor am I reminding myself that this pain flare too shall pass. Today is not a day where I’m using...

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I haven't seen my friends in 6 months due to COVID...but that's my normal. chronic illness chronic pain covid disabled life friendship mental health neurosurgery pain awareness month pandemic rare disease Sep 01, 2020

I was reflecting last night on how I have not seen any friends in person over the past 6 months due to COVID. I chuckled a bit at this thought because, truth be told, quarantine life isn’t much different than my PreCOVID life. Only now, my absence on social outings is just seen as more...

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