Having fibromyalgia does not stop Juliana Savino from living her life. We want this smart, sweet and self-aware Ohio woman as our neighbor and friend.

Thank you Juliana for being every bit just you.

Click here to see her video in The New York Times.

Jana was raised Mormon and now is a hippie Quaker living in Southern California with her husband, John, and their two teenage children.

Twenty-five years ago Jana lost her right leg to bone cancer. Recently she got an antibiotic-resistant infection in her lower left leg, and is doing everything she can to heal and keep that leg.

Jana is smart, beautiful, likes gardening, an afternoon cup of tea and has wise words for us all on her blog “Pilgrim Steps: Taking Life One Leg At A Time.”

(via Dooce)

Kathy Galletly had to undergo a revolution in her thinking before she accepted the idea of using a wheelchair.

A polio survivor, she grew up with cumbersome steel braces, wood crutches and rickety wheelchairs, but by adulthood was able to walk and move without them.

When post-polio syndrome (PPS) came along in later life, Kathy refused to try the new generation of mobility devices. “I don’t need a lousy brace,” she told herself. “And I’m sure as hell not using a wheelchair!”

She finally concluded the mobility devices were not the enemy - Her thinking was the enemy. From that point on, she decided to be the “Diva of Mobility Devices.”

Click here to learn more about Kathy, who has also been published in a book of short stories entitled Gratitude With Attitude.

(via The United Spinal Association)

Journalist Patricia Bauer created her Web site when she could not find an online source for media coverage of issues relating to disability.

Bauer is the mother of two young adults, one of whom has Down Syndrome and is a survivor of leukemia.

She has worked as a senior editor of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine and in numerous positions at the Washington Post, including as a reporter, bureau chief and special assistant to the publisher.

Her site, Patriciaebauer.com, is a collection of news and commentary taken from newspapers, magazines, and other media resources. The site is smartly written, updated regularly, and brings readers timely and interesting reports.

If you are a regular reader of ours, you also need to be reading Ms. Bauer. Check her out.

Check out “Lemonade Life” - what Salon.com calls a “very good, smart” read about living with diabetes. The name refers to writer Allison Blass making lemonade of the health lemons life has handed her.

Meet the legally blind director of the planetarium in Nashville, Tenn., who for 19 years has roamed the galaxies charting star maps. “Everyday,” she says, “I get paid to go to space and it’s a blast.”

More than 4 million people have seen this video of Matt Harding dancing around the world.

The video has nothing to do with people with physical limitations - our demographic. It’s a just a real good, old fashioned, feel-good video of people of all colors, shapes and nationalities joining this sweet, kind-of-goofy man to dance up a storm.

Make sure you click on “Watch in High Quality” at the bottom of the video screen. And if you want to know more about Matt Harding - The Dancer - click here to read his story.

For many of us in the United States, Memorial Day merely means a three-day weekend in which to spruce up our yards, fire up the barbecue and catch up on cleanup at home.

But, as you will see in this video, wounded soldiers who lost an arm, a leg or a buddy no longer think of Memorial Day as just the start of summer and the time to have a few beers on the patio.

The soldier in this video eloquently, playfully, and gently expresses how his memories have changed the way he views this holiday.

One of our favorite singer/song writers, Rosanne Cash, is writing again after spending months recovering from the removal of a brain tumor last November.

In her column in The New York Times, Rosanne writes movingly about the last year, lost friends, and the nature of God:

“Most of the time I haven’t a clue to whom I’m praying,” she writes. “And I like it that way. Sometime God is Art, Music and Children and that is more than good enough.”

Click here to read about Rosanne’s road forward from “scary adventures in pain and neurosurgery.”

Click here to go to her Web site.

Cait & Marty are on opposite sides of the controversy involving Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter from South Africa who runs on “Cheetahs” - state-of-the-art carbon fiber prosthetics.

Pistorius has dreamed since childhood of qualifying for the Olympics. The International Association of Athletics Federations has been against it, saying Pistorius’ Cheetahs give him an edge over over athletes.

Marty supports the IAAF policy. Cait opposes it. Here are their arguments:

“Marty, you ignorant slut. Let him run. Pistorius’ legs, such as they are, still have to pump those Cheetahs and there is no certainty he would win - or even qualify - for the Summer Games.

I would watch that race for sure. So would the rest of the world. Think of the ratings as tens of millions of people tuned in to Robo-Gimp vs. the Olympians - a Sci-Fi movie come to life. So cowboy it up IAAF and let him race.”

“Cait, YOU ignorant slut. You, and too many others, are thinking with your hearts on this one.

Pistorius’ ‘legs’ are not human - they are machines, and Olympic competition was designed to test the human body unaided by performance devices. Runners with ‘real’ legs also face cramps, muscle spasms and other lower leg injuries from which Pistorius’ Cheetahs are immune.

For another viewpoint, look to the Greeks and Romans who developed the Olympics. The first written code of Roman law in 449 B.C. ruled: ‘Cito necatus insignis ad deformitatem puer esto’ - which very loosely translated means ‘Gimpy people shall not compete on carbon fiber prosthetics.’ ”

Eds Note: The literal translation of ‘Cito necatus insignis ad deformitatem puer esto’ should raise the small hairs on the back of your neck. Google it.