The realization that adaptive features are not covered by insurance—medical or otherwise—highlights the societal belief that driving is a privilege rather than a right. Those with the greatest access to financial resources and time will be among the few who can reap the benefits from adaptive driving technologies. I can see myself advocating for and contributing to policy changes that challenge the perspective that driving is a privilege. And that first step may involve admitting that I have a disability in the first place.

If it’s too hard to use your right hand, use your left. If it feels really hard today, you are making progress for tomorrow (it gets better and you get stronger). Don’t be sad at what you lost, because you are rebuilding, always becoming something greater than before.

This article describes the work I have been doing to redefine the patient role in health care, research, and medical education… I felt validated to be featured here after the last year of my life where I faced a lot of unseen challenges.

There is no rulebook for some of the things I have had to recently learn. New exercises were invented. I designed a strategy to learn to drive a car again, which involves Gran Turismo 7 for the PlayStation.

Hello everyone! It's me, Liz! I'm officially back from the other side of surgery, although my language and math skills are still very much on the mend. I hope you can bear with me as I relay this very personal update.

Literally everything I have learned over the last 7 years of working in healthcare applies to my current situation. I can’t help but both be in my body as “the patient” but also observing outside of myself, giggling a little and learning a lot.

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” – Frederich Nietzsche. It that’s true I am going to be a fucking genius.

I tell people brain surgery is easier than they think. The doctors put you to sleep and then you wake up X-amount of hours later and you never know what happened because you were asleep! You hurt, and you have to take it easy for a long time, and you can't go on any roller coasters for a while, but other than that it is all good.

But in the spirit of Erin and her outright frankness, I feel it is my duty to admit that she will be next, in a line of amazing people I've known, to lose their life to a brain tumor.