I’ve been thinking lately about how resilience is discussed in the Philippines. After major storms, familiar images circulate online: weddings continuing despite floodwater inside churches, people joking or swimming through flooded streets, and families smiling while cleaning mud from their homes. There is something admirable about finding humor when…
HemoWife - a Column by Allyx Formalejo
Lately, I have been trying to spend as little as I reasonably can. I decided to enter a season of aggressively paying down debt. Even writing that makes me slightly uneasy. I have a personal concern about announcing goals: Sometimes saying what I plan to do gives me enough…
Recently, my husband, Jared, and I asked our 7-year-old daughter what she knew about being a hemophilia carrier. It wasn’t a serious family meeting. There was no carefully prepared speech. She was stimming and half-playing while we talked, and at times I wasn’t entirely sure how much of the…
Due to my husband Jared’s severe hemophilia B, we keep a small, personal supply of factor replacement therapy in our refrigerator that typically is enough to cover one bleeding emergency. This isn’t a small detail for families like ours who live in the Philippines, where access to factor products…
Lately, I’ve come across more conversations about what it means to live independently with a bleeding disorder. They usually focus on big milestones: moving out, going to college, starting a career, or taking charge of one’s own healthcare. It made me curious, especially now that my husband, Jared, and I…
Recently, I posed a question to Hemophilia News Today readers on social media for Disability Pride Month: “Do you consider hemophilia to be a disability? Yes, no, or somewhere in between?” The question prompted a wide-ranging public discussion. Some considered hemophilia to be a disability because of its…
The scream echoed through our house, loud enough to rattle the windows. For a moment, I wondered what the neighbors must have thought. My husband and I were walking up the stairs when he accidentally scraped his hand against the railing. It wasn’t a particularly hard hit. Most people probably…
Someone recently told me they thought they were experiencing arrival fallacy. I’d heard the term before. It describes the feeling of reaching a long-awaited goal, only to discover that it doesn’t bring the lasting happiness you imagined. After the excitement fades, life feels surprisingly ordinary again. Before long, a new…
I don’t usually ask myself whether I want something. I ask whether I can justify wanting it. Is it practical? Financially responsible? Useful enough? Meaningful enough? Will I regret spending the money? Could I explain the decision to someone else without sounding irresponsible? I suspect many care partners know this…
When I first started writing for Hemophilia News Today in 2018, I never imagined it would become part of my career. At the time, I was a young woman preparing for marriage and trying to make sense of life with hemophilia. I had stories to tell, lessons to…
