Happy Fifth Birthday Oh TWIST!

Lordy time flies you guys! I was just updating my WordPress theme and all my plugins tonight ahead of upgrading to Gutenberg when I realized I’ve been running this blog for five years now, wow! Happy Birthday to me!

Both me and the blog have moved a couple of times since 2014 – hopefully fairly seamlessly to you. (It was not trivial for me!) And I attended the 2017 EDS Learning Conference in Las Vegas with the generous help of a scholarship and additional support. This helped me to present the giant new internationally rolled out classification scheme and diagnostic criteria as accurately as possible here and on Facebook and Twitter that year. (Our first major update in 20 years since the Villefranche Nosology of 1997.)

Thank you to all who helped me get up to speed quickly so I can help “spread the gospel” of the new diagnostic information including the newly recognized Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders. (Think: equally afflicted people, just less visibly so to most doctor’s eyes.)

And I was tapped via Twitter to contribute to one of the leading information sources for doctors rolled out in May 2018 – the EDS Toolkit for General Practitioners hosted by the Royal College of General Practitioners in London. Written by doctors for doctors (though freely available to all on the internet), I was honored to join the esteemed team of experts led by Dr. Emma Reinhold, a GP and fellow hEDS patient. (Please share far and wide! It’s intended for General Pracitioners and non-specialists to use.)

I also managed to work again part-time for a bit last year, though I’m back to scraping by and sweating every penny for now until I find something I can manage again. (I learned a lot in the process including just how much pain I’m really in still – more than I wanted to admit. And how bad sitting is for me.) And I started my Patreon site after losing my job last March to help support this writing habit and try to finish my book sooner than later. (I welcome one-off donations via my PayPal link here, too thanks!)

I’ve also learned how to self-host a WordPress site, added Yoast and a few other nifty plugins with a generous smart friend’s help, and am now about to adopt Gutenberg. (Don’t ask! But it’s the wave of the future if you plan to use WordPress, so embrace it if you do. Think “Legos” for WYSWYG WordPress blog editing.)

I don’t expect any major hiccups, but if anything burps here, just know that I’ll definitely do my darnedest to iron out any wrinkles as quickly as possible. (I really don’t expect any – just a minor learning curve for moi.) Though I do have numerous pages to touch if I do.

What’s next for Oh TWIST?

I’m also secretly cooking up a couple of exciting new offerings on both my Patreon site and here which I’ll disclose once they’re fully prepped. For now I will just offer this teaser. I’m being purposely obtuse so I don’t disappoint anyone. (What you don’t know won’t hurt you, right? Just me, smile.) I’m also still recovering from my latest move, as well as the latest head cold I caught just in time for Christmas, whee. (Blergh!)

Okay, enough dallying. Time to roll up my sleeves and push the button on this upgrade before any more time passes. Here goes nothing! (Glub! Glub!) See you on the flip side… Happy Birthday Oh TWIST!

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