Thoughts While Surviving Chronic Illness: Ramblings From a Chef Whose Body Constantly Rebels

One morning I realized I had stopped doing something completely ordinary. Stretching. Not because I chose to, but because somewhere along the way my body decided it wasn’t safe anymore. Living with sarcoidosis and heart failure doesn’t just affect your health in obvious ways. It quietly rewrites your instincts. The biggest changes don’t always happen in hospitals or test results. Sometimes they show up in small, almost invisible moments. This episode explores how fear lingers in the body, how survival rewires behavior, and how chronic illness reshapes everyday life in ways we don’t notice until something simple disappears.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Sometimes the most exhausting part of chronic illness isn’t the appointments, the symptoms, the insurance nonsense, or the daily negotiations with a body that refuses to behave. Sometimes it’s an old relationship that comes back acting as if time erased the imbalance. In this episode, I talk about childhood friendship, unresolved feelings, one-sided effort, awkward reconnections, and the quiet relief of realizing that shared history doesn’t automatically earn access to your present life. Chronic illness has made my energy feel more limited, more expensive, and far less available for people who only remember me when someone else hands them my address.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Medical trauma doesn’t always announce itself during the obvious terrifying moments. Sometimes it waits until an ordinary hospital visit, after routine blood work, when everything should feel familiar and manageable. This episode explores chronic illness, sarcoidosis, heart failure, hospital anxiety, panic attacks, and the way the body can store fear long after the mind thinks it has handled the hard parts. It’s about endurance, fear, shame, humor, and learning that a reaction is not a failure.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Living with chronic illness is not always shaped by dramatic medical events. Sometimes it is shaped by the tiny detours we quietly build into our days. In this episode, I talk about realizing I had been avoiding three ordinary stone steps, and what that small moment revealed about sarcoidosis, heart failure, fear, adaptation, and the slow way a life can shrink by inches. This is a personal, reflective, lightly funny look at avoidance, resilience, breathlessness, and the private negotiations we make with our bodies when ordinary things start asking more from us than they used to.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Sometimes it is not the big symptoms that stop you in your tracks. It is the quiet ones. The bruises you cannot explain. The skin that tears a little too easily. Living with sarcoidosis and long term prednisone use means learning how your body changes in ways no one really prepares you for. In this episode, I talk about those small but unsettling moments, the kind that make you pause and ask what is happening to me now. Because chronic illness is not just about survival. It is about adapting to a body that keeps rewriting the rules.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Living with chronic illness affects more than the person with the diagnosis. It changes marriage, caregiving, routines, fear, and the quiet emotional work shared inside a home. In this episode, I reflect on sarcoidosis, heart failure, love, caregiving, and the spouse who has helped me survive the hardest parts of my life. This is a personal story about marriage under pressure, the unseen weight caregivers carry, and the kind of love that notices breathing, fatigue, fear, stubbornness, and hope without turning any of it into pity. For anyone living with chronic illness, or loving someone who is, this episode is about being held through it.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Wearing oxygen in public with sarcoidosis changes more than breathing. It changes the way people look at you, the way they try not to look at you, and the quiet assumptions they carry about what chronic illness is supposed to look like. In elevators, stores, and ordinary public spaces, those silent reactions tell their own story. This episode explores oxygen therapy, visible illness, social discomfort, and the strange gap between expectation and reality. It is about being seen, being misread, and learning that sometimes the hardest part of chronic illness is not the symptom itself, but what happens when the world suddenly notices it.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Waiting for medical test results with chronic illness can feel like sitting through an awards show you never agreed to attend. Every pause carries weight, every glance feels loaded, and your mind fills in the blanks before anyone speaks. Living with sarcoidosis and heart failure means learning how to exist in that space between testing and knowing. But sometimes, the outcome shifts. Sometimes your body gives something back. This is a story about that moment when fear loosens its grip, even briefly, and you’re reminded that relief, even temporary, still matters.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

A moment from childhood can quietly shape how we carry guilt for decades. In this episode, I share the story of losing my stepfather at thirteen and the belief I carried for years that it was somehow my fault. Living with sarcoidosis and heart issues has taught me that emotional weight does not just live in the mind, it settles into the body. This is a reflection on how the stories we create in moments of trauma can linger, and how slowly, imperfectly, we begin to let them go.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Invisible illness can make ordinary social moments surprisingly complicated. A simple comment, a changed friendship, or a curious question can turn into an emotional negotiation when your body carries more than people can see. This episode explores chronic illness, invisible symptoms, privacy, boundaries, friendship, dignity, and the pressure to explain yourself. It’s about living in a body that doesn’t always advertise what it’s doing, while still wanting to be treated as a whole person, not a walking medical summary.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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, and symptoms that feel normal to you but deeply suspicious to everyone else. What started as an ordinary appointment became one of those strange public moments where illness stops being private and starts becoming a spectacle. It was awkward, absurd, and, honestly, a little funny. Because sometimes the only way to survive the weirdness of living inside a body that makes its own rules is to laugh before somebody calls security.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 mirrors our own chronic-illness battles.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 defibrillator, wait in fear, go under the operating lights, feel the strange sensations no brochure mentions, and wake up with emergency hardware in my chest. This is not the polished hospital version. It is the patient version, the human version, for anyone facing an AICD implant and wanting the truth in plain language from someone who has lived it.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 right heart catheterization and was met with kindness, answers, eye contact, and actual respect, it caught me completely off guard. In this episode, I talk about why simple human decency can change the emotional weight of a procedure, why bad attitudes linger in the body, and why compassion in healthcare is not some deluxe extra. Sometimes good care is not only about what gets done. Sometimes it is about how you are treated while it happens.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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. Spoiler: the bees aren’t the problem.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 why I’ve never been comfortable saying I “suffer from” my diagnoses, and why that distinction became about more than language. It became about dignity, identity, and survival. Chronic illness is exhausting, frightening, and sometimes brutal, but the words we repeat to ourselves can shape how we carry it, and whether we let it become the whole story.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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. This is about pollen, fatigue, beauty, grief, adaptation, and those quiet moments that still manage to feel like life. If you live with sarcoidosis, chronic illness, or love someone who does, this episode is a grounded look at how the body negotiates change while the world keeps blooming anyway.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 everything when you're living with chronic illness and still trying to find joy in the little things.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 uneasy hope that comes with hearing the words remission, reset, and maybe even recovery. This isn’t a miracle story, because real bodies are messier than that. But it is a story about what it means when medicine stops just managing suffering and starts asking whether the whole system can be rebooted. And for people who live inside unpredictable bodies, that question hits home.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 that old wiring followed him into life with sarcoidosis. This is a quiet, honest conversation about shame, fear, faith, and the heavy stories we attach to illness. If you have ever wondered whether you caused your condition, deserved your suffering, or somehow failed your own body, this episode is a reminder that illness is not punishment, and guilt is not something you have to carry forever.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 sarcoidosis and heart complications, routine medical tests are never really routine. They can determine whether the disease is quiet… or quietly returning.But every once in a while something unexpected happens.A phone call.A decision made by someone behind the scenes.A moment where the system that usually feels rigid suddenly bends in a human direction.And sometimes those small moments remind you that living with chronic illness isn’t only about what the body loses… it’s also about what life quietly gives back.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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, chronic illness, medical stereotypes, and the exhausting way people reduce human beings to categories instead of meeting them with empathy. It is about what happens when statistics stop being information and start becoming assumptions, and why people living with rare disease deserve to be seen as people first, not demographic surprises. Because pain is pain, illness is illness, and ignorance adds nothing useful to either.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 enough with sarcoidosis and serious lung disease, transplant eventually enters the room. But hearing the question and wanting the answer to be yes are not the same thing. This episode is about that first appointment, the shock of being asked so bluntly, and why my answer was already there, waiting.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 and heart failure to realize time is expensive, energy is limited, and “just ignore it” is the laziest advice on earth. This isn’t a victory speech or a halo-polishing session. It’s the story of how a kid who stayed quiet learned when silence starts sounding like agreement… and what finally made me stop swallowing my words.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 body (hello, sarcoidosis) is acting like it pays rent. This is about the dad I lost too soon—the one who earned the title—and the strange little lessons that followed me into adulthood… right up to cardiology appointments and the moments I have to decide whether I’m going to fold or make a joke.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 freestyle without permission. If you live with sarcoidosis and heart failure, you already know the feeling: you can be doing something painfully normal, and then your insides decide to audition for a disaster movie. This is the story of the day my heart tested the emergency system—and what it taught me about limits, denial, and why “I’m fine” is sometimes a full-blown lie.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Welcome to nother bonus episode of short stories from my now closed podcast, "Pan to Pen."Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 even ourselves can linger longer than we realize. But the real lesson in the story isn’t what you think.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 twist of fate, and the thin line between what doctors find… and what they don’t.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

This bonus short story is from my now closed podcast, "Pan to Pen: A Storytelling Podcast."Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 lifeline, but it can also become a convenient little crutch… the kind that looks holy while quietly stealing your agency. This one might make you laugh, sigh, or clutch your pearls—possibly all three.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

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 little sarcastic, and explain why I still mask up even when the world says “move along.”Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

A Bonus story episode from my now closed podcast, "Pan To Pen: A Storytelling Podcast."Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Ever notice how sarcoidosis doesn’t just come for your lungs (or your heart, if it’s feeling ambitious)—it comes for your calendar, your energy, and your bank account too? This is the story of what “good insurance” looks like when the bills have six digits, the premiums creep up like a horror-movie soundtrack, and you realize staying alive in America is a subscription plan you never asked for… but can’t cancel.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

When you’re a writer with chronic illness juggling deadlines, the last thing you expect is your editor ghosting you mid-contract. This cautionary tale dives into how one “faith-filled” editor turned out to be a crook—and what every writer, especially those managing sarcoidosis or other chronic conditions, can learn about protecting themselves (and their wallet).Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

This is a bonus episode. A Story from my now closed "Pan to Pen: A Storytelling Podcast"Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

In 2007, a routine heart procedure turned into a life-changing diagnosis: heart failure. Nineteen years later, I’m still here—living with sarcoidosis, a defibrillator in my chest, and the constant awareness that my next heartbeat might depend on a tiny piece of metal and code. This is what surviving with an AICD really feels like—equal parts miracle, nuisance, and reminder to keep going.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Living with sarcoidosis taught me a weird truth: the harder you work to keep your life normal, the more the system charges you for it. Portable oxygen was supposed to mean freedom—walks, errands, road trips, maybe even a little joy—until I met the fine print, the upsells, and the “special charger” that costs more than my first apartment’s microwave. If you’ve ever felt like breathing comes with a subscription fee, this one’s for you.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Ever wondered what happens when an 18-year-old bank manager gets peer-pressured into a “mandatory meeting” that turns out to be rum shots and card games? Here’s the messy, hilarious, and surprisingly life-defining story of my first and only time getting drunk—complete with spinning rooms, questionable decisions, and one disgusted girlfriend (now wife).Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Living with sarcoidosis and an ICD means my chest has a tiny, judgmental hall monitor clocking my heart 24/7—so I’m fascinated (and slightly alarmed) by how many of us still choose to spend our limited energy angrily shaking our fists at modern medicine. If you’ve ever felt tempted to make complaining your full-time job, this is your gentle, sarcastic nudge to look at what’s actually keeping you here.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

As a chef, writer, and lifelong bookworm living with chronic illness, I’ve discovered that my Kindle isn’t just a gadget—it’s freedom. Between hospital visits, late-night writing sessions, and lazy Sundays with my pets, it lets me carry an entire library in my pocket without the weight or the guilt of unread stacks. Here’s why I’ll always choose my Kindle over physical books and why e-readers might be the best invention since espresso.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

If you’ve ever tried to recreate a TV chef’s “simple” dinner and ended up wondering if you accidentally auditioned for a survival show, you’re not alone. As someone juggling sarcoidosis, heart failure, and a full-time chef life, let’s just say I’ve learned exactly how misleading those glossy cooking programs can be. And no—I’m still not over the raw chicken incident.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

In a world obsessed with celebrity net worths and Instagram wealth, it’s easy to forget that our true value isn’t tied to money but to character, compassion, and integrity. As someone living with chronic illness, I’ve learned that self-worth has nothing to do with how much you earn—and everything to do with how deeply you live.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

When religion divides families, sometimes the kindest thing you can do is stop trying to fix what faith has fractured. As a chef living with chronic illness and a full plate of chaos, I’ve learned that peace is sacred—and you can’t pray someone into respecting your boundaries.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

I saw a guy land a ridiculous roller-skating trick in a beach town and my brain immediately volunteered my body for a stunt it absolutely did not agree to. Living with sarcoidosis has taught me that nostalgia can be sweet, savage, and weirdly funny—and sometimes the bravest move is not proving anything at all.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

Ever had someone snatch your phone while you were just trying to show them a picture? Twice in one day, it hit me how much of my entire life—accounts, passwords, memories, even my brain power—now lives inside this little iPhone. As a chef with sarcoidosis and heart failure who once memorized entire bank account numbers and directions without GPS, I’m wrestling with the good, bad, and ridiculous sides of tech dependence.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research 

After years of drowning in headlines, outrage, and “breaking news” pings, I finally unplugged—and discovered that peace, calm, and mental clarity are a lot more satisfying than doomscrolling. Here’s how quitting the news improved my mental health, lowered my stress, and helped me start living again.Send A Text To TateSupport the showThis podcast is narrated using an AI voice. The words, reflections, and lived experience are my own.To respond to this episode, use the text link in the episode notes, or send longer messages through the contact form at tatebasildon.com. I’m not able to respond to solicitations, outside projects, or interview requests.To support sarcoidosis research or learn more, please visit The Foundation For Sarcoidosis Research