Chronic Bits 

ChronicBabe Editrix Jenni Prokopy will be a featured speaker during the upcoming National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week, September 10-16, 2007. Check out the schedule of speakers and register for her free online presentation.

It's all about the chow today at ChronicBabe, and in keeping with the theme, Babe Kirsti points us to this cool article on The Color Code Diet by Julie Deardorff. In a nutshell, Julie tells us to go for color - in rice, eggs, grapes, peppers... for reasons of taste and, almost more importantly, nutrition.

On August 29, check out a FREE 60-minute teleconference sponsored by Medtronic and hosted by pain management specialist Eric Grigsby, MD of Spectrum Pain Care in Napa, California and Tame the Pain Ambassador Donnah Snaer-Williams of Oceanside, California. Topics to be discussed include chronic pain treatment options and advocating for good pain care. Sign up for the Tame the Pain teleconference and get more information.

Babes, a big batch of you were bounced out of the Goodie Bag email today. Not sure why - we're working it right now - but if you are a subscriber and didn't get your Goodie Bag, please let Editrix Jenni know and we'll shoot you a link to read it in your web browser. Thanks for your patience!

A new report from the National Women's Health Resource Center gives a terrific overview of Women & Gastrointestinal Conditions. And it's free!

Check out Grand Rounds, fresh today at Med Source with a Back to School theme. And for newbies: check out the Grand Rounds archives.

The American Pain Foundation is hosting a "Pain & Creativity" contest. Enter still visual arts, a film, or a square for a pain quilt. Deadline is September 20; get the details on qualification and more.

Our pal Amy Tenderich (creator of Diabetes Mine) is such a rock star. She wrote an open letter to Steve Jobs a little while back, imploring him to inspire the world to create better (and more beautiful) medical devices. Voila! Yesterday, she announced that a charming company out of San Fran has developed the design for a new diabetes device: the Charmr. And in a small world moment, that fantastically creative company behind the Charmr is Adaptive Path—co-founded years ago by Editrix Jenni's longtime pal, Lane Becker. Ain't life funny?

This week's Grand Rounds is hosted at Med Journal Watch, and the theme is "sudden change." ChronicBabe is honored to be featured in a top spot, with a story about acceptance of life with chronic illness and change for the better. Extra cool!

So easy! So helpful! Shop our Amazon.com links (sprinkled liberally throughout the site, and there's a search box on every page) and we get a commission from every purchase. Just bookmark our site, and when you shop, click through our site and you'll be helping ChronicBabe stay strong? For example, may we suggest getting all of your health & personal care items through our links? Thanks, Babes!

One of our favorite chronic illness-related sites, But You Don't Look Sick?, is four years old. Congrats, Babes! If you haven't checked out their site in a while, head on over for tons of cool resources.

MSNBC reports today on research showing that talking TOO much about your problems makes you feel worse about them. The articles suggests that instead, give yourself a timeframe for venting (like a few minutes) and then move on. Great advice, Babes!

We're excited to announce that Jenni will be a featured teleseminar speaker at this year's National Invisible Chronic Illness Week festivities, hosted by Rest Ministries. She'll be talking about what it means to be a ChronicBabe—and how you can still be one hot mama in spite of illness. More details to come, but for now, check out the announcement and keep Tuesday, September 11 at 7pm CST open in your calendars!

Hey Babes, check out our new goodie to the right: the PayPal donation button. As the nice lady says, we can't run this site without you! So if you've got a buck or two to spare, please make a donation to ChronicBabe today by clicking on the graphic to the right. (It's conveniently located on every page.) Thanks!

One week down, three to go: Help us celebrate our second birthday by sending us a short email and telling us why you love ChronicBabe. We'll pick our favorite three stories, and you'll get a ChronicBabe gift box with a t-shirt, journal, buttons and more. Deadline: August 31. AND we'll do a random drawing of two winners from the next 100 eNewsletter subscribers, so if you're not getting the Goodie Bag, sign up - you might win a gift box, too.

Grand Rounds is fresh for the taking at Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei's Eye on DNA. Great theme, tons of posts - a wonderful resource, Babes!

ChronicBabe is honored to have received its second award in a matter of days: the IBS Tales "Hope Award," presented to Web sites that offer accurate information and resources for patients; encourage sufferers to search for new treatments and hope; and refuse to accept inadequate medical advice and doctors who tell us to "learn to live with it"!

ChronicBabe is proud to announce it's one of HealthCentral's 2007 Top Sites! The Top Site Awards are awarded to the web's very best small web sites and individual blogs dedicated to providing informative, insightful and inspirational health care advice. Yay! And did we also mention our pals A Chronic Dose, Fighting Fatigue, But You Don't Look Sick? and a bunch of other cool sites also won? We're in good company!

Written by Jennifer Jaff, executive director of Advocacy for Patients with Chronic Illness, Inc., this new book pulls from her perspective as a ChronicBabe and someone who helps people with chronic illness. Check out Friday Tired today!