(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . IAN: October 20, 2023 NCHPAD: free program for people with disabilities [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-19 As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care! Happy Friday! I started a new thing last week, and I wanted to give it a week before I brought it to you all, so I had some experience with the process. NCHPAD offers free classes for people with disabilities. It’s an 8 week program and includes mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and overall health classes. You can take all or any of them, there are also free one on one sessions with the mentors available, and they send you a box with everything you need, including exercise equipment like a yoga ball, wrist weights, a Pilates balancing circle thing, Exercise bands, etc. IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news! Monday Youffraita Tuesday: bigjacbigjacbigjac Wednesday Pam from Calif Thursday art ah zen Friday FloridaSNMOM Saturday FloridaSNDad Sunday loggersbrat What is NCHPAD? I have struggled for years to get treatment for several of my chronic illnesses. Medicaid has repeatedly denied coverage for Respiratory Therapy classes to improve my breathing stamina. I have never, in 23 years, been treated for my fibromyalgia. And I have had Functional Neurological Disorder for 13 years now, and never gotten treatment for that other than some meds to help with my non-epileptic seizures. So I’ve been pretty much going it alone, figuring out how to help myself. A few weeks ago I found the NCHPAD connects program, and, as much of what it includes is also included in the very expensive and not covered by medicaid FND treatment programs, I decided to give it a try. The 8 week program is called the Mentor Program. I have classes 4 days a week, by zoom meeting. Mindfulness on Mondays, Exercises on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Nutrition on Thursday evening, and Health on Friday. Each class takes about an hour. And of course, you have tasks to do by yourself during the week. I am learning so much! Week 1 in exercise was posture and PNF exercises, which are recommended for people with FND and other neurological disorders. Week two we are focusing on improving balance to reduce falls. Exercises are taught both seated and standing, so you don’t have to try to adapt things yourself, and, as it’s a live zoom class, you can always ask questions and he will demonstrate adaptations that will work for you. They also give you lists of youtube resources to work with, to give you some variety, and provide more learning opportunities. Below are some of the youtube resources, this is not the actual class, just things you can use to learn more or practice with. The first week in nutrition we learned how to make coconut curry. Bit and I got the ingredients when we went shopping, though we used green curry paste instead of red, because spicy foods don’t sit well with me. It was really good! I had never had curry before. I also learned some accessible cutting techniques and tools to let me actually do more cooking myself. And mindfulness, of course, is always recommended for chronic conditions. No one ever tells you how to go about it though. You’re kind of left on your own to figure it out. Youtube videos can help, but can be disjointed and confusing, or you can miss things that you need. Also, they’re not always accessible in what they teach. For example, I can’t use breath as an anchor, because thinking about my breath tends to give me MORE anxiety due to my COPD. My meditation mentor gave me suggestions for other anchors to use that may work for me, and I’m trying a few of them to figure out what works out best. And I just ignore breathing prompts that others use. And that’s ok. I’m hoping this will help me bring about some good changes in my life. Reducing symptoms and making me more functional in my day-to-day life, that’s my broad goal. I know I’m still going to have good and bad days, but if I can make the good days a little better and have a few less bad days I will be happy. Here is your frequently banned picture book of the week: [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/19/2200112/-IAN-October-20-2023-NCHPAD-free-program-for-people-with-disabilities?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/