Surviving Chronic Illness: Life in a Body That Rebels
Surviving Chronic Illness: Life in a Body That Rebels is a lived experience podcast about surviving sarcoidosis, heart failure, rare disease, and the strange daily reality of having a body that does not always cooperate.
Hosted by Tate, a private chef, writer, husband, pet parent, and long-term sarcoidosis survivor, this podcast is not about miracle cures, medical lectures, or pretending that a positive attitude fixes everything. It is about the honest middle of chronic illness: the fatigue, fear, grief, humor, stubbornness, absurdity, and small victories that come with surviving day after day.
These are first-person stories about illness, identity, marriage, work, memory, resilience, and learning how to live inside a life that changed without asking permission. Some episodes are reflective. Some are funny. Some are angry. Some are tender. All of them come from the lived experience of someone still figuring it out in real time.
This podcast is for people living with chronic illness, sarcoidosis, rare disease, heart failure, autoimmune conditions, invisible illness, or any body that feels like it has gone off-script. It is also for caregivers, spouses, family members, and friends who want to better understand what illness feels like from the inside.
If you are tired of toxic positivity, pity, miracle-cure noise, and being told to “just stay strong,” you are in the right place.
This is a podcast for the sick, the tired, the stubborn, the scared, the sarcastic, the hopeful, and everyone trying to build a life in a body that rebels.
Episodes
69 episodes
The Strange Math of Chronic Illness: What Sarcoidosis Taught Me About Expectations
People sometimes ask how anyone living with sarcoidosis can stay positive day after day. The answer isn’t motivation, inspiration, or some magical personality trait. It’s something quieter… something most people miss entirely.
The Smoking Backpack: Chronic Illness in Public
A doctor’s waiting room is usually boring. Mine briefly turned into a low-budget suspense film because my portable oxygen backpack looked like it was smoking. Living with sarcoidosis and chronic illness means getting used to equipment, routines...
MiniCast: When the Wild Speaks: The Night a Fox and a Crow Changed Everything
On a quiet sunset drive, I stumbled into a raw moment between a fox and a crow—two wild creatures locked in instinct and mystery. What began as an ordinary evening turned into a reflection on survival, intuition, and the strange ways nature mir...
Getting an AICD: What the Surgery Felt Like From the Hospital Bed
Getting an AICD implanted is not just a procedure. It is the moment heart failure stops sounding like a diagnosis on paper and starts feeling real in your body. In this episode, I share what it was actually like to hear I needed an implantable ...
The Day the Hospital Treated Me Like a Human Being
Hospital visits can start to feel like rehearsed disappointment when you live with sarcoidosis, heart failure, and the long, exhausting reality of chronic illness. I know that feeling well. So when I went to Westchester Medical Center for a rig...
MiniCast: Stop Saying You’re Allergic to Bees (When You’re Really Just Terrified of Nature)
Ever wonder why everyone suddenly claims they’re “allergic to bees”? In this cheeky yet heartfelt take from a chef living with chronic illness, I explore what our bee phobia really says about fear, faith, and city folks who panic at pollen. Spo...
Why I Don’t Say I Suffer From Sarcoidosis
The words we use for chronic illness matter more than most people realize. In this episode, I reflect on a question my wife asked back in 2011, a question that changed the way I talk about sarcoidosis, heart failure, and illness itself. I share...
When Spring Returns to a Chronically Ill Body
Spring has a way of looking hopeful while also trying to crawl directly into your sinuses. In this episode, I talk about what it means to live with sarcoidosis, heart issues, and the shifting realities of chronic illness through the seasons. Th...
MiniCast: The Day I Danced with a Monarch: A Reminder That Nature Still Wins
After a week of rain and gray skies, I stepped outside and found myself face-to-face with a monarch butterfly—a rare, breathtaking sight that reminded me why we let dandelions grow and bees buzz in our yard. Here's why moments like these mean e...
CAR-T, Autoimmune Disease, and the Strange Hope of a One-Time Treatment
A treatment built for cancer is now doing something that sounds almost unreal in autoimmune disease. In this episode, I talk through a story about CAR-T cell therapy, a woman whose body had been attacking her from multiple directions, and the u...
You Didn’t Deserve This: Sarcoidosis, Shame, and Letting Go of Guilt
What happens when chronic illness shows up and your first instinct is to blame yourself? In this episode of Thoughts While Surviving Chronic Illness, Tate reflects on growing up with guilt, being taught to question himself, and how tha...
When Insurance Says No: A Sarcoidosis Story About Unexpected Help
Chronic illness teaches you that control is often an illusion. Tests, insurance approvals, medications, and diagnoses can feel like they belong to systems far bigger than the person living inside the body.For someone living with sarcoido...
Chronic Illness, Sarcoidosis, and the Absurdity of Racial Assumptions
After writing about winter tearing up my hands and posting a photo of my cracked, bleeding knuckles, I got an email that was less compassionate and more confused that I was not the race the sender expected. This episode is about sarcoidosis, ch...
When the New Pulmonologist Asked About a Lung Transplant, I Already Knew My Answer
After insurance forced me to leave the pulmonologist who had known my lungs for twenty years, a brand-new doctor asked a question that hit me like a dropped skillet: had anyone discussed putting me on the transplant list? If you live long enoug...
Raised By Women, Tempered In Kitchens:How Respect Became My Quiet Rebellion (and Why I’m Done Laughing Along)
I learned respect the slow way—by watching what happened when women spoke and men decided they were “too much.” By listening in kitchens where the food mattered more than the people making it. And by living long enough with sarcoidosis a...
The Dad Who Showed Up: Grief, Sarcoidosis, and the Inheritance of Dark Humor
When you grow up learning who doesn’t show up, you start measuring love in smaller, sharper ways—like footsteps on a porch, a hand on your forehead at the school nurse’s office, or the kind of laughter that keeps you upright when your ...
When My Heart Rebelled for Two Minutes—and My AICD Decided to Stay Employed
Some people collect souvenirs when they travel. I collect medical printouts. One routine cardiology visit handed me a neat little report, the kind that looks boring until you realize it’s basically a receipt for a moment your body tried to free...
Vitamin D and Sarcoidosis: Why “Low Vitamin D Causes Inflammation” Headlines Don’t Tell the Whole Story
A new study claims low vitamin D may drive inflammation—but if you live with sarcoidosis, the story gets more complicated. Before reaching for supplements, there’s something important many headlines leave out.
The Forgotten Days: What Living With Sarcoidosis Taught Me About the Ordinary Moments Between the Milestones
We remember diagnoses, heartbreaks, and miracles—but what about the quiet days that carry us between them? Living with sarcoidosis has made me realize the most important parts of life might be the ones our memory quietly skips over.
Chasing Time: A Story From My Earlier Podcast, Pan to Pen
Welcome to nother bonus episode of short stories from my now closed podcast, "Pan to Pen."
The Feather Pillow Lesson: What an Old Story Teaches Us About Words, Reputation, and Living with Sarcoidosis
A simple story about a pillow full of feathers has been told for centuries by rabbis, monks, and priests. I heard it once on the radio and it stuck with me—especially as someone living with sarcoidosis, where words from doctors, strangers, and ...
Cardiac Sarcoidosis and Sudden Death: The Disease That Can Hide in Plain Sight
Sometimes sarcoidosis whispers instead of shouts. Someone can appear perfectly healthy, living their life, planning tomorrow… while something dangerous quietly hides in the heart. This episode reflects on a recent tragedy, a strange twis...
From Pan To Pen: "Chasing Raindrops"
This bonus short story is from my now closed podcast, "Pan to Pen: A Storytelling Podcast."
When Faith Turns Into a Shortcut: Why “Thank You, Jesus” Isn’t Always Enough for Chronic Illness.
I read a lot of chronic illness blogs—part coping strategy, part writerly snooping—and I keep running into the same pattern: the urge to turn suffering into a spiritual trophy. Living with sarcoidosis has taught me faith can be a lifelin...
So You Still Think Covid Is Just a Bad Flu? Think Again: Why This Chef With Sarcoidosis Still Wears a Mask
You think Covid was just a bad flu and “done with”? Let me tell you why that belief didn’t exactly age well — especially if you’re someone living with sarcoidosis or any chronic illness where every breath matters. I’ll get personal, a ...