After getting a mechanical heart valve replacement and a pacemaker, former social worker and teacher Kimberly Goodloe found herself in an unfamiliar position: asking for help.
Making peace with the surgeries she required and adjusting to her new “normal” presented significant challenges to the active, independent woman, who was more comfortable helping others. She also had to learn how to be a better advocate for herself and build support networks.
Karen Ager, 48, is an author, wife, and teacher, and is currently completing her master’s degree in Wellness (mind, body and spirit health and wellbeing). Ager has been living with rheumatoid arthritis for three decades, since she was a teenager, spending her free time on the beaches of Melbourne, Australia, where she grew up.
New Zealand is home to the world’s longest survivors of type 1 diabetes. Eighty-four-year-old Winsome Johnston has defied the odds, in more ways than one.
Ms Johnston as always has lots of people to buy presents for around Christmas – four generations, in fact. But none of this was meant to happen.
