It’s Carnival Time! #ADBC and PFAM

Martha at Believe in Who You Are is the host of the October edition of the Assistance Dog Blog Carnival. Even though she is between dogs right now, she has taken up the challenge and come up with a great theme: Moments. Please visit her Call for Entries for topic ideas, guidelines, the deadline, etc. Thank you, Martha!

Is this the Moment for you to get involved?

Lately it has struck me how many people follow assistance dog blogs (mine or others) who are not assistance dog partners. I know a lot of wonderful dog trainers and lovers of dogs who follow After Gadget here or on Facebook. When I learned of the topic for the next ADBC, I thought, “Anyone can write on this!” I mean, I know some of you who train assistance dogs or who train pet dogs but read about service dogs on lists or blogs or Facebook must have moments you want to share — don’t you? Moments where you read something about assistance dogs or training that made you stop and think? Moments where you read an idea relating to a service dog issue and you realized it could apply to your pet dog or you? Moments that moved, inspired, or irked you?

Why not join the carnival? Come on over, the moment’s right!

And speaking of getting more people involved in the ADBC, I’ve decided to introduce the hashtag #ADBC on Twitter so that people who are tweeting about the Carnival can more easily spread the word. So please, if you write a post for the ADBC or you read a post about it you like, retweet and add the hashtag #ADBC. I am very fond of everyone who participates regularly (or sporadically) and always look forward to their take on the new topic. At the same time, I think it would be fun to expand our family and get new people reading and posting every quarter. Thank you for your help! (By the way, my handle is @aftergadget.)

Meanwhile, another blog carnival is taking place now. The monthly Patients for a Moment (PFAM) blog carnival is being hosted today by Selena of Oh My Aches & Pains! She has done an amazing job of putting together a really big and fantastic(ally frightening!) carnival of The Fright Files: Stories of Medical Mistakes. Don’t miss it!

– Sharon, the muse of Gadget, and Mr. Barnum, SD/SDiT

I’m Hosting PFAM at Bed, Body & Beyond

Just a quick announcement that I’m hosting the Patients for a Moment (PFAM) blog carnival again*, this time at my other blog, Bed, Body & Beyond.

Since my other blog focuses on writing and being a writer, the theme I have chosen is writerly:

Why do you write? As a person with a disability or chronic condition, why do you blog and/or write?

More elaboration, elucidation, and questions to pique your imagination are at the call for submissions! I hope you will hop on over and check it out.

– Sharon, the muse of Gadget, and Barnum, SDiT

The first time I hosted the PFAM carnival was here at After Gadget.

Both Carnivals Accepting Late Submissions: ADBC & PFAM

Assistance Dog Carnival Deadline Pushed Back

  Cyndy Otty at Gentle Wit has asked me to announce that, due to illness and to others’ requests to get posts in late, she has extended the Assistance Dog Blog Carnival deadline another week. So, if you want to write and submit a post on the topic of “Achievement” in relation to assistance dogs, you now have until October 31 to do so. (And if you wrote something that you’re not 100 percent thrilled with, as some of you have tweeted about, you now have time to meet your needs for perfectionism.) This is Cyndy’s call for entries. And here is the ADBC home page, answering all your burning ADBC-related questions.

I’m Patient about PFAM Entries

  I’ve also received two terrific PFAM entries from people who were “past the deadline” and a question from another about whether she’s too late to submit. Well, phooey on the deadline. This is a carnival “by, for, and about” people with chronic illness, so if we don’t understand about life/illness getting in the way of meeting deadlines, who the heck does? I haven’t even finished my own PFAM entry! So, if you haven’t submitted one because you think you’re too late, don’t fret. I’ll gleefully accept entries through 2:00 AM Eastern Time tonight of whatever time zone you’re in. (Or, you know, a few hours after that if you really need it.)

I’m thrilled with the thoughtful posts that have been generated by my question, “Are you a ‘patient’?” and deeply relieved and grateful that I am not facing a “silent” carnival (where nobody submits posts!). Keep ’em coming!

Also, if you have already submitted your post, first of all, thank you! Second of all, if you are interested in making your post more accessible to readers and commenters by Wednesday, you still have time to change settings or make edits, if you so wish. One simple step is to disable “word verification,” which presents a barrier to comments by blind readers as well as neurological and other disabilities. Find five relatively easy steps to make your blog or post more accessible here and more info on blog accessibility here.

In Conclusion . . .

If you have a submission for ADBC, post that at Gentle Wit.

If you have a submission for PFAM, post that in the comments below, or at the original call for subs.

Thanks, everyone!

– Sharon (@aftergadget), the muse of Gadget, and Barnum, SDiT

PFAM Announcement: Are You a “Patient”?

As I announced last month, I’m hosting the upcoming edition of the Patients for a Moment blog carnival! I hope you will participate!

I chose a topic that really goes to the heart of the matter — that takes on the name of the carnival itself! Here is the topic. You can tackle some or all of these related questions/issues:

What makes someone a patient? When, and in what contexts, do you think of yourself as a patient, and when do you not? If you live with a chronic illness, condition, or disability, do you refer to yourself as a “patient,” a “person with,” a “person living with,” a “person healing from,” or do you prefer to keep your disability or condition in the background? If you’re a medical professional or a family member or friend of someone with a chronic condition or disability, how to do you refer to them when speaking to others or blogging?

And of course, the most important issue is WHY do you choose the language you do?

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, October 23, by midnight of whatever time zone you’re in (-ish). While I definitely need most submissions in by Sunday in order to put the post together, I know it can be hard to meet deadlines when you’re ill. Therefore, if you are writing something for the carnival and need a little extra time, please contact me, and we’ll try to work something out so I can squeeze you in.

The blog will go up Wednesday, October 26.

Of course, it’s lovely if you write something new just for this edition of PFAM, but if you find yourself running out of time, and you have a post already up that answers this question, please send it along. To submit, please comment on this post with the following information:

• Your name (as you’d like it to appear in the post).
• Your blog’s name.
• Your post’s title.
• Your post’s URL.

I really look forward to reading your posts!

By the way, if you are new to After Gadget, I encourage you to try to make your posts for this edition of PFAM as accessible as possible to people with a wide range of disabilities, including putting descriptive alt tags on any photos, transcriptions for any videos, and disabling word verification for comments. This will not only enable more people to enjoy your work and to experience greater ease in navigating the web, but it may bring you new readers and possibly followers and subscribers! Find out details about steps you can take to make your blog more accessible (many of which are very easy) on my ADBC page. Thank you for your consideration!

Please also spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, on your blog, and everywhere else! Thanks so much!

– Sharon, the muse of Gadget, and Barnum, SDiT

I’ll Be Hosting a PFAM Blog Carnival Next Month! Please Be “Patient”!

I’m thrilled to announce I’ll be hosting a couple of future editions of the Patients for a Moment (PFAM) Blog Carnival. I hope you will participate!

PFAM is a biweekly blog carnival, described thus on the PFAM “About” Page:

Patients For A Moment is a patient-centered blog carnival – for, by, or about patients – that was started by Duncan Cross (http://duncancross.net//). The goal of the carnival is to “build connections within the community of people who blog about illness, disease, and disability. This includes doctors, nurses, caregivers, even policy wonks – but especially patients.”

PFAM has been going strong for three years, but I have rarely taken part. I love blog carnivals, and I have wanted to take part more often than I have. So, what has stopped me?

The main reason is that, since it’s biweekly, there’s not a long lead time. With my symptoms and unpredictable functionality, it’s hard for me to write blogs without a substantial amount of time to gather my thoughts on a topic that hasn’t already been floating around in my head, write it, and submit it on time (always assuming that I remember to write and submit it — a very, very big assumption!).

The other reason is that I sometimes don’t have much (or anything) to say on the given topic. (I know, hard to believe: me, without something to say!) That’s because the PFAM structure is that the host asks a question pertaining to living with illness, disease, or disability, and requests blog posts that answer that question in some way. While many are general enough that I could answer them — What are you afraid of? What are you thankful for? What are your guilty pleasures? — sometimes the questions were so specific, and my life so limited, there wasn’t much I could say. For example, your five favorite places to go (I can only go one place, aside from medical appointments); how do you stay physically active (I don’t/can’t); what is your must-have music (I usually can’t tolerate music), etc. Often, I’d think to check out PFAM and find a really great topic that I definitely had something to say about had been published the week before (or I’d plan to write on that topic and forget), and then the next one was a topic that didn’t fit me.

Another issue, though a small one, is that I don’t usually think of myself as a “patient,” and I don’t blog that much specifically about my illnesses/disabilities. My life as a disabled person is the background to almost every post, but I’m not really a “chronic illness blogger” — I don’t generally write posts about treatments, coping, doctors, how my life has changed since I’ve been disabled (I barely remember what it was like anymore not to be disabled), etc.

However, so often I find that the best way to get involved in something is to alter it to fit me — which usually involves taking a leadership role. Well then, what better way to get involved in PFAM than to host?

So, I will be hosting two PFAM editions in the next few months. Here at After Gadget, on October 12, look for the announcement of the topic for the October 26 edition of PFAM. Then, in December, I’ll host an edition at my other blog with a topic appropriate for that blog’s focus.

Meanwhile, if you didn’t know about PFAM before, and you’re interested in reading archived or new editions, or in contributing to the carnival, check out the PFAM home page!

– Sharon, the muse of Gadget, and Barnum, SDiT