Storyline Health Navigation

Storyline Health Navigation We are a NP led team uniquely equipped to blend medical expertise with whole-person support. This allows you to make confident, informed choices.

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“The Road goes ever on and on…”May felt like a fitting month to linger with the Inklings.Lewis, Tolkien, Williams, and t...
05/31/2026

“The Road goes ever on and on…”

May felt like a fitting month to linger with the Inklings.

Lewis, Tolkien, Williams, and the friends who believed stories were not an escape from reality, but a way of seeing it more clearly.

In healthcare, I find myself returning to that idea often.

Because most people are not just carrying diagnoses. They are carrying narratives. Family histories. Grief. Hope. Questions. Fear. The unfinished chapters between appointments that never quite fit inside a chart.

The Inklings understood that meaning matters. That the stories we tell shape how we move through the world. And that even the longest roads are traveled one step at a time.

Launching the Storyline Substack this month has been something I’ve been dreaming about for a while. A place for longer reflections. Essays. Questions. Literature. Healthcare. Faith. The strange and beautiful intersections between them.

Not because I have everything figured out.

But because some conversations need more room than an Instagram caption can hold.

Thank you for following along through a month of books, imagination, and reminders that wisdom often arrives disguised as story.

The road goes ever on.

And I think we’re just getting started.

📖 Read the first essay at the link in bio: The Road Goes Ever On.

You're still married. You still love each other.But now you're also managing medications, coordinating appointments, mak...
05/31/2026

You're still married. You still love each other.

But now you're also managing medications, coordinating appointments, making medical decisions, and tracking symptoms.

Nobody warns you how hard it is to be both spouse and caregiver at the same time.

Research shows spousal caregivers often experience higher rates of depression and health decline than other family caregivers—not because love is weaker, but because there's no break. You wake up in it, live in it all day, and go to sleep still carrying it.

What helps isn't trying harder. It's support.

Respite care, home health services, and adult day programs can reduce caregiver strain and create space to be a spouse again—not only a caregiver.

You can be deeply devoted and still need help. Those aren't in conflict.

As Owen Barfield wrote: "What is most necessary for us is not the excitement of discovery, but the deepening of what we already know."

You already know who you married. The work is tending what matters in a way that's sustainable.

💬 If you're a spousal caregiver, what's been the hardest part of holding both roles at once?

Thank you to the Glen Meadows community for a lovely happy hour today. We enjoyed great conversation, excellent hospital...
05/30/2026

Thank you to the Glen Meadows community for a lovely happy hour today. We enjoyed great conversation, excellent hospitality, and the chance to spend time with residents.

Our little helpers were thrilled to be included and loved meeting everyone. We’re grateful for the warm welcome and look forward to our next visit.

05/29/2026

Some days you just draw and paint your own coloring page.

I have always loved ink and wash. Thanks, Aristocats, for making me think all cats in Paris should be fluent in jazz and watercolor.

But if today had a theme, it was tending.

You sketch. Maybe some ink. Maybe forget not all the pens are water soluble because your brain is also not water soluble apparently. So you figure out a work around. Watercolors over the mistake. Then re-pen when it dries. Layers on layers.

The results were not what I had in mind when I started.

Which is probably the best way I can write about art. Or health. Or Fridays when you’re ready for the work week to be done.

Tending does not need a perfect outcome. It just needs you to show up with a brush and a willingness to re-pen the parts that got messy.

P.S. I was always fascinated by the Pauline Baynes illustrations for The Chronicles of Narnia. Whimsy and real life and medieval and somehow modern all at the same time. Not for the wardrobe. For the walking through it. That is the energy I want. Not perfect. Just enchanted and slightly odd.

So tell me. What are you tending today with no idea how it will turn out? The laundry. The sourdough starter. Your nervous system. Your kid’s weird craft phase (is slime still a thing?). Drop it below.

Save this for the days when you need permission to make art that is not for the fridge.

Most of medicine isn’t cure.It’s tending.Which is frustrating if you were hoping for a neat little movie ending where th...
05/29/2026

Most of medicine isn’t cure.
It’s tending.

Which is frustrating if you were hoping for a neat little movie ending where the treatment works, the music swells, and your chronic illness quietly disappears forever.

But healthcare usually looks more like adjustment over time.

New symptoms. Medication changes. An aging parent who suddenly needs more help than they did six months ago. A care plan that keeps becoming a different care plan.

Maybe the work was never meant to be “finished.” Only tended.

Patients need clinicians who keep showing up. Clinicians need patients who keep communicating honestly about what’s working and what isn’t.

Both sides are tending something ongoing.

And honestly? That relationship matters more than people think.

Studies show continuity of care and long-term patient relationships improve outcomes, reduce medical errors, and help sustain healthcare workers through burnout. Because good care compounds over time when someone is actually paying attention to the whole story.

Hope in medicine isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like:
* A follow-up call after a hard appointment
* Someone remembering what mattered to you last spring
* Adjusting the plan instead of pretending the first one worked
* Not letting someone fall through the cracks

Care that stays matters.

We believe in care that tends, not just treats. Care that stays, not just solves. Care coordination and advocacy that holds the thread when healthcare becomes fragmented and exhausting.

💬 What has ongoing care looked like for you lately?

05/28/2026

We got our son a 3D printer for his birthday and now I have a new personality trait… person who stares at plastic being slowly deposited in layers.

You cannot tell what it is yet. But watching it form is weirdly beautiful. Hypnotic even. Like if Bob Ross narrated engineering homework.

Here is the thing that got me at 11pm with cold coffee in my hand. All that structure underneath. All that lattice and scaffolding that exists just to hold up the real thing.

You cannot see the final design. You cannot name the supports. You just have to trust that the machine knows what it is doing.

Health journeys are exactly like this.

The medication adjustments. The therapy homework. The partner who reads every ingredient label like it is the Da Vinci Code. The mother in law who learned gluten free baking so I could have bread that does not taste like regret. The 3am Google spirals that you swear are research.

From the outside it looks like nothing. Or chaos. Or why are you wasting so much filament.

From the inside it is architecture. It is the invisible structure keeping you upright while the actual you takes shape. The supports are bigger than the piece sometimes. That does not mean the piece is not coming.

So if you are in the messy middle right now. The part where you cannot name what is forming and the scaffolding looks more important than the sculpture. This post is for you.

The structure is there. Even when you cannot see it.
Tell me your invisible support structure. The med, the person, the ritual, the weird coping mechanism that no one else notices but you would collapse without. I will go first in the comments.

Save this for the days when the process feels pointless and you need proof the machine knows what it is doing.

Apparently every modern problem can be solved with your stack, a morning routine, and a woman on Instagram whispering ab...
05/28/2026

Apparently every modern problem can be solved with your stack, a morning routine, and a woman on Instagram whispering about your cortisol levels from inside a beige kitchen.

And listen. Some fatigue absolutely deserves medical evaluation. Thyroid disease, anemia, sleep apnea, autoimmune conditions. If you are exhausted all the time, that matters.

But wellness culture has created another problem. If your labs are normal and you are still tired, the assumption becomes: you just haven’t optimized hard enough.

More supplements.
More tracking.
More routines.
More powders that taste like sadness and lawn clippings.

I once worked with a teenager whose schedule looked like a Fortune 500 executive trapped inside a swim meet. Elite athletics. AP classes. College prep.

He came in exhausted & upset his performance was declining (well, his dad was... slightly different convo).

He was sleeping five hours a night.

But somehow everyone skipped over the part where he was profoundly sleep deprived and instead went searching for the magical protocol that would help him “perform better.”

No. He needed sleep. Boring, regular sleep.

This is where wellness culture quietly becomes harmful. It convinces people that if they are struggling, the answer must be more optimization instead of asking whether they are carrying too much load to begin with.

And for people with chronic illness, this pressure gets even heavier.

You are already managing symptoms, appointments, medications, uncertainty, and insurance systems designed like an escape room with no clues. Then someone implies if you just found the *right* protocol, maybe your body would cooperate.

Meanwhile, the biggest protective health factors remain remarkably ordinary.

Sleep.
Hydration.
Taking medications consistently.
Social connection.
Basic safety.
Rest.

Not every season is meant for optimization. Some seasons are for stabilization.

If you are showing up, trying again tomorrow, and caring for the body you have with the energy you have, you are not failing.

Health is quieter than the industry wants you to believe.

💬 What’s one “healthy habit” you stopped doing that actually made your life better?

Your doctor says, “The labs look stable.”You hear: Nothing’s getting better. We’re just watching while I suffer.She mean...
05/27/2026

Your doctor says, “The labs look stable.”

You hear: Nothing’s getting better. We’re just watching while I suffer.

She means: Thank goodness it’s not progressing. We have time. This is actually good news.

Same sentence. Completely different meanings.

C.S. Lewis wrote: “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.”

In healthcare, perspective changes everything.

A doctor may hear “stable.”
A patient may hear “stuck.”
A caregiver may hear “declining.”
A family may hear “suffering.”

All true. All shaped by where each person is standing: fear, pain, hope, training, exhaustion, experience.

Good care recognizes this. It doesn’t just ask, “Do you understand?” It asks, “How does this feel from where you are?”

Sometimes clarity comes not from more information, but from being met where you actually stand.

💬 Has a doctor ever said something they meant one way, but you heard completely differently?

05/27/2026

So I’ve done embroidery, oil pastels, and GF sourdough in the last 7 days. Am I trying to confuse the algorithm?

Maybe a little 😅

But here’s what I realized: the medium doesn’t matter.

Health + illness journeys are messy. Non-linear. Full of starts, stops, and “wait, I’m doing this now?”

Creativity is how I process it.
Beauty is how I represent it.

Whether it’s thread pulling through fabric, pigment smudging under my fingers, or flour coating my kitchen…

it’s all the same language.
It says: “I’m still here.”

It says: “This hard season doesn’t get to erase wonder.”
It says: “Even gluten-free sourdough that tastes like cardboard counts as art.”

I don’t think we heal in straight lines.

I think we heal in layers. In stitches. In blends. In messy loaves shared with your mother-in-law on a Tuesday night.

So, no,this isn’t me flailing between hobbies.

This is me documenting the one story I know:
Creativity belongs in every health journey.

Calm or chaos? Wonder or grief?
Yes. All of it. At once.

If your health journey also looks like “serial hobby hopping” to cope, create, or just feel something… you’re in the right place.

Save this if you needed permission to be multi-passionate in a world that wants you to pick one lane.

Second pass at trying to sort out my thoughts.Have you ever had this happen?You’re sitting in an appointment explaining ...
05/26/2026

Second pass at trying to sort out my thoughts.

Have you ever had this happen?

You’re sitting in an appointment explaining how hard this has been. How much life has changed.

And someone says: “But your labs look good.”

You leave feeling worse than when you arrived. Not because the labs were bad. Because your grief got dismissed.

Owen Barfield, the Inklings philosopher, wrote:
“What is most necessary for us is not the excitement of discovery, but the deepening of what we already know.”

In healthcare, I think that means this:

You already know this is hard.
You already know your body changed.
You already know life looks different than you imagined.

You do not need forced optimism wrapped in inspirational wallpaper energy.

You need someone willing to sit with you in what is already true.

When grief gets minimized, it hardens into loneliness. People stop telling the truth because there’s no room for it. They start performing “fine” because honesty feels inconvenient.

And carrying grief alone is exhausting.

Research in narrative medicine and relationship-centered care shows that when people feel emotionally witnessed, they experience less distress, greater trust, and more resilience navigating illness.

Not because reality changed.
Because isolation did.

This isn’t about positivity or pretending loss is secretly a gift.

It’s about presence.

About making space for what is real instead of rushing toward what feels easier to say.

And strangely, when grief is finally given room to breathe, joy often appears too.

Not replacing grief.
Alongside it.

A real laugh in a hard season.
Relief after finally being understood.
A moment of connection when you thought no one saw you anymore.

Barfield was right. We do not always need discovery. Sometimes we need deepening. Someone willing to go deeper into what we already know is true and stay there with us.

That’s what good care feels like.

Not fixing.
Not rushing.
Just presence.

💬 When has someone witnessed your grief instead of trying to solve it?

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