06/24/2026
If you followed this page under the name RUGGED OPTIMIST, you already know the core of what this is all about. It's the refusal to let harsh realities become wasted opportunities. "Bring the bad. Get the goods."
But what you might NOT know is just how bad things got during our gap in activity.
Multiple sclerosis. It was always part of the story, but rarely was it ever front and center. Until it unexpectedly started demanding a leading role from me, taking with it a career, any plans for the future, and the applicability of any accumulated life lessons.
It took it all. Quickly. And those things it rapaciously took? They soon became like memories from someone else's life.
RUGGED OPTIMIST, as the business it was and in the form it took, couldn't survive what the disease was doing. STAY SICK is what *did*.
But at its core, itβs that same defiance of resignation amid lackluster circumstances. The form may have changed, but the CORE FOUR hasn't:
1οΈβ£Extract opportunity everywhere.
2οΈβ£Dismiss nothing to miss nothing.
3οΈβ£Harness conflict to forge growth.
4οΈβ£Happen to the world.
So here's how it happened and where it's going:
STAY SICK, as our πpioneer lemon-squeezersπ already know, started out as just a Twitch stream [] because that's all that was thought to still be possible. Two years of freefalling, a body and mind deteriorating faster than I could even process, no available intervention on the horizon, and so we just chatted... about πΌVHS-era nostalgia; π»about weird history; π₯΄about life with an incurable disease eating away my brain and short-circuiting my body.
It was eclectic. It was honest. It was... something. And, at the lowest points of my condition, it could be grim.
BUT it was apparently something people would show up for.
βοΈ STAYSICKlive hit Affiliate status in just 23 days, in under 14 streams, whereas most dedicated channels take roughly 3 months! And what followed unearthed that the channel could be, in reality, just a starting place.
β· The clinical picture my disease's progression only had one prescription: resignation to that unstoppable freefall. β
But in pushing back against structural resignation , I gained unprecedented clarity on why exactly I felt restrained from meaningfully participating in my own care.
And eventually, that led to me stopping the freefall. Finally.
And finally, maybe, STAY SICK could begin growing into something considerably more. Something more as I start rebuilding my life from the rubble left behind by what I learned was just standard protocol for patients like me.
βͺβͺβͺ UPCOMING β«β«β«
is STAY SICK's clothing and education line β defying performativity, boring illness-themed merch, and opposing market-driven care protocols that deprioritize patients. Keep an eye out for that imminent fb event with details!
The first swag drop and (re-)educational event is upcoming soon, followed by a second, then followed by more of my journey with this disease, what I've been doing about it, and what became possible once I refused to accept things that could only made medical sense in a nonsensical framework.
My ongoing recovery, and what I found on the other side of an incredibly broken infrastructure, is its own story. Not just a tragedy, not a conspiracy theory, not being healed by crystals.
Not a cure.
BUT a refusal to be another casualty to what forces even well-meaning caregivers to squeeze their Hippocratic oaths into the cracks of market initiatives.
π Be on the lookout for a patient-driven publication currently in development, built by and benefitting chronically ill patients. More on that soon, including how you can be a part of it!
In the meantime, stay tuned and keep it squeezy. π
πMy sincerest gratitude to those who have been helping me claw my way back.π
venmo:
twitch:
