You’ve Got CreakyMail: Send a Loved One a Free Holiday Postcard This Season
Last year CreakyJoints provided our community with a special and free opportunity to send a message of thanks or inspiration to a fellow person living with a chronic disease or to a caregiver, friend, family member, health care provider, or other special person in your life who has helped you throughout the year.
This year, it feels even more important to find ways to connect and support each other. We have all been through so much during 2020. This is a simple way to give back to someone who has had a positive impact on your life during such a harrowing year. We are not asking you to put a dollar in a jar, walk in a race, or to pay anything to participate. This service is 100 percent free to you and self-funded by CreakyJoints.
Why Provide This Free Service?
We know that the demands of the holiday season are particularly hard for people with chronic disease. We know the holidays are different this year and we hope sending a postcard adds comfort.
We hope this program will provide a simple way for you to let others in your life know that you are thinking of them and are grateful for them during this reflective time of year.
The Details:
You’ve Got CreakyMail is a patient-centered and patient-designed postcard program aimed to reduce the loneliness that many people with chronic disease feel and to celebrate those who are bright lights in their lives. This program highlights artwork from two people living with chronic diseases. You can learn about their work below.
No Fine Print. Here’s What You Need to Do:
This opportunity is open to the first 250 people living in the United States (we will look for ways to support the international CreakyJoints community in the future). To participate, provide your information before December 14, 2020 and we will mail — free of charge — a physical postcard to the person of your choice. There is a limit of one postcard per person.
The postcard sent will be one of the four designs featured below.
Sal Marx
Sal Marx, a multi-media artist with ankylosing spondylitis, works at the intersection of art and chronic disease to advocate for patients. Sal is based in Brooklyn, New York. You can find Sal’s work at salmarx.myportfolio.com.
- “CandyCane”: Asking for support, whether in caregiving, community, or assistive devices, is often stigmatized when it should be seen as empowering. This candy cane represents not only a support, but a celebration of all we can do with our communities at our side, says Marx.
- “Snowman in the Waiting Room”: Patients living with chronic, incurable diseases rarely fit into healthy-sick binaries. With illnesses often invisible and oscillating in symptoms and magnitude, patients find themselves in limbo, betwixt and between sick and healthy. By creating a third box, an “other,” I aim to make this complex identity visible, says Marx.
Jennifer Walker
Jennifer Walker is a patient who creates art to express her chronic illness life and mental health struggles. You can follow her on Instagram/Facebook as @UnexpectedAdvocate and on Twitter as @UnxpctdAdvocate. Her artwork is for sale on Etsy under the shop name of 522artNdesign.
- “Hummingbird”: As a person with multiple chronic illnesses, I identify with hummingbirds because they are solitary creatures, migrate to be away from winter, and by all accounts should not be able to fly. I created this piece to provide sustenance to other hummingbirds out there just like me — so they can continue to defy the odds and fly backward, forward, up, down, sideways, and even hover, says Walker.
- “Umbrella”: Becoming sick is like being caught in an unexpected downpour. Caregivers are a source of comfort, support, solace, and help — like someone walking over with a much-needed umbrella. I created this piece to say thank you to all those who help us stay dry. We never expected to be sick, but we see you and we appreciate you, says Walker.
Stay Healthy and Happy During the Holidays
The 19 Mental Health Tips Everyone with Chronic Illness Needs to Get Through the COVID-19 Holiday Season
5 Steps to Stay Safe When Your College-Aged Kid Comes Home for the Holidays During COVID-19 and You Have Chronic Illness
How to Avoid Getting COVID-19: 9 Key Reminders for People with Chronic Illness
11 Extra Steps Chronic Illness Patients Should Take to Stay Safe from COVID-19 This Winter
