Kait Masters of Larkspur + Laurel is a part-time artist, full-time community support professional, and a chronic illness/disability advocate. She was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular disease as a child, and the act of creating became one of the most important parts of management and acceptance of her condition. Her passion for art, advocacy, and community eventually led Kait to her job in community support with Rising Tide and HoneyBook.
Kait & I discuss the impact of having a chronic illness on our work and share tips on how we have learned to incorporate it into our lives. This isn’t always easy – it can take adaptation to make it work, understanding employers if you have a job, and evaluation to define what success now looks like for you.
It is so important that employers have systems in place to help not only employees with chronic illness but their family members as well.
Even if you don’t have a chronic illness, I hope that listening to this episode will help you better understand people who do, and help you have empathy for friends & loved ones who might be facing this situation someday.
Details on how to join The Rising Tide Society are here: Honeybook.com/join-risingtide. You can also join the TuesdaysTogether – Creative & Chronic Illness group on Facebook.
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4 replies on “Episode 25 – Creative Work and Chronic Illness with Kait Masters”
Something that I found interesting was the way Kait turned something that impacted her life negatively into something positive for her as well as others that are affected by MG. She talks about in the first 5 minutes how she had lost a job due to her illness in which she can’t control and I thought that that was so unfair. People don’t just ask for a disease to be handed to them and I just find it interesting how managers or bosses don’t take that into consideration. I really like how Kait decided to advocate for other people that are affected by chronic illnesses like her.
Something that I found interesting about Kait was how positive and enlightening she was. At such a young age she had to deal with a rare disease that changed her life in an instant. I really liked how Kait didn’t feel sorry about herself and decided to go make a change by helping others out. Even though she had dealt with past situations where she lost her job due to her illness. She really was encouraged by this and decided to make a difference not only for herself but others around her who had the same struggles.
To me, it’s so crazy how strong she is and how her illness has changed her life so much. It was sad to hear that because of MG she lost her job, however it’s so cool how so overcame that and realized she had to change all of her life and schedule. Some things she still can’t do like drive and go to the grocery store because she has such a limited amount of energy that she has to save it for the things she really NEEDS to do. It’s sad to see how much life she’s limited to do because everybody’s always told to life life to the fullest but she really can’t which is very unfortunate so I give her a lot of credit for what she has to constantly deal with
Something I truly admire about Kait is that she has been through so much from a very young age , but she does not let it bring her down. She has to deal with a lot but is still so positive. She makes the best out of her situation, and does not let MG stop her. Yes her illness hinders her from doing many thing, but she does not mope around but keeps on going. I also really appreciate that she is not afraid to ask for help. It is truly sad that she was fired from her job, for something she can’t control. Even though this was horrible it opened a door for her to employ herself and able to control her schedule. I give her so much credit for dealing with her illness in a positive way,