In the opening episode of the "Living on Borrowed Spoons" podcast, host Tessa (aka the Spoonie Ninja) introduces herself, her extensive chronic‑illness history, and the purpose of the show. She emphasizes that nothing shared is medical advice, only lived experience. Tessa recounts a childhood marked by a foot deformity, 48 corrective surgeries, severe infections, and over 80 surgeries by 2025, explaining how early medical trauma shaped her nervous system, pain awareness, and advocacy. She lists her adult diagnoses—POTS/dysautonomia, cancer‑associated dermatomyositis, Graves’ and Hashimoto’s disease, lupus, scleroderma, endometriitis, congestive heart failure, leukemia, cat‑scratch fever, and other autoimmune conditions—highlighting that each is a piece of a larger, layered health picture. The "Spoonie Ninja" identity emerged from the need to strategize energy (spoon theory) and act stealthily like a ninja to survive. Tessa outlines the podcast’s focus on nervous‑system impacts, pacing, boundaries, grief, resilience, and community, aiming to provide honest, humorous, and human conversations for people living with chronic illness and their supporters. She invites listeners of all backgrounds—patients, caregivers, or curious listeners—to take what they need, leave what they don’t, and feel safe to rest and be authentic without having to justify limits.
Chapters
In this episode, I will be telling you who I am and what led me here. But before we go any further, I want to say one important thing. Nothing shared on this podcast is medical advice. I'm not here to tell you what to do with your body. I'm here to simply share my lived experiences, not to replace your care team. Hi, I'm really glad you're here. If this is your first time listening, I want to take a moment to tell you who I am, not just my name, not just a diagnosis, but why this space exists at all. Because this podcast didn't come from a content plan. My name is Tessa, but you can call me Tess for short. And long before chronic illness had names, before the acronyms or the explanations, I was a child living in and out of the hospitals. I was born with a foot deformity that required 48 corrective surgeries throughout my childhood. Hospitals weren't unfamiliar to me. They were normal. Operating rooms, recovery beds, learning how to be brave before I even understood what fear was. I was so used to being in surgery that the nurses already knew when I came out of surgery, I wanted a turkey and American cheese Lunchable and a Sprite waiting for me because that was familiar. That was safety. As a child, I developed a severe strep throat infection, and that turned into necrosis. And I lost a bone. I nearly lost both of my feet. There were moments where survival wasn't guaranteed. The pain wasn't theoretical. It was daily, formative, and life-shaping. By the end of 2025, I had had over 80 surgeries and medical procedures in my lifetime. I don't share that for shock. I share it because it shaped everything. It shaped how my nervous system learned the world. It shaped my awareness for danger, for pain and safety. It shaped the advocate, mother, and human I became. So when people hear chronic illness, they assume that it started later in life, but the truth is my body learned very early that safety wasn't a given. As an adult, my symptoms were finally given names, and this part matters because POTS is not the whole story. Yes, I live with POTS and dysautonomia, but they're only one piece of a much larger layered picture. I also live with dermatomyositis, specifically cancer-associated myositis, which comes with ongoing cancer surveillance. And it gets frustrating because you get told you're too young, you could never have this, wait until this age to be screened, but that's not the reality of things. I also live with Graves' disease and Hashimoto's disease, and yes, those can exist together. I have lupus, scleroderma, and other mixed connective tissue diseases. I also have endometriosis, which I will still never understand why it's not been diagnosed as a cancer yet, but that's a whole nother story. I also have congestive heart failure, which I've been living with for the last few years. And there's other autoimmune and systematic conditions that have taken over my life, that's helped me shape my life. But along the way, I've also faced serious illness that don't quite fit into just one chapter, including a diagnosis of leukemia and cat scratch fever, which became a much larger part of my medical history. Those aren't isolated events. Those are just chapters that have spent decades negotiating survival with. This is where Spoonie Ninja comes in. Online, I'm known as the Spoonie Ninja. That name didn't come from wanting to be catchy. It came from necessity. Because living with chronic illness requires strategy, stealth, adaption, knowing when to move and when to rest and when to disappear from the noise to survive. A ninja doesn't fight every battle head-on. They conserve energy, they choose their moments, and they move with intention. And a Spoonie? If you know the spoon theory, a spoonie lives with limited energy every single day. So Spoonie Ninja became the identity that held both truths. I can have strength and limitations. I can be resilient, but I can also rest. I have power without pretending that my body is invincible. That identity became a way to speak openly about chronic illness with honesty, humor, and humanity. To advocate for those without minimizing, to educate without talking down, and to remind people that surviving in a body like this is a skill. When I talk about pacing and boundaries or grief, it's not because, because one diagnosis ultimately takes over, it's because my body has been navigating survival on multiple fronts for most of my life. Getting a diagnosis didn't teach me how to live. They didn't teach me how to function inside of limitation, and they certainly didn't teach me how to grieve. No one teaches you how to grocery shop when your heart is beating out of your chest. No one explains to you that those lights inside the supermarket not only give you a migraine and make you feel nauseous and dizzy, and you don't know what to do with yourself, but how to deal with those things. No one tells you how to grieve the versions of yourself that you thought you would be, and no one prepares you for how lonely it will be. When you look okay, but managing so much internally. This is why this podcast exists. I created Living on Borrowed Spoons because I needed conversations that live in the in-between, the emotional cost, the invisible labor, the identity shifts, the quiet resilience that never makes headlines. Now, you'll hear me talk about the nervous system a lot here, not clinically, but personally, because when A nervous system grows up in survival mode, everything is affected. Energy, emotions, tolerance, and a sense of safety in the world. You're going to hear me talk about grief, not just for people, but for futures that had to change. Of resilience, not the push-through-it kind, but the quiet kind, the kind that looks like rest and listening. And knowing when to stop, because that is also strength. If you're listening because you're sick, I see you. If you're listening because you love someone who is, you belong here. And if you're listening because your body feels like something you have to manage instead of trust, you're not alone. And if you just want to listen to listen, hey. I'm here for that too. I don't have all the answers, but I do have lived experience and honesty and the willingness to talk about the things that most people avoid. This podcast isn't about fixing you. It's about understanding yourself, protecting your nervous system, and finding steadiness in a life that asks more of you than it should. So if you're new here, welcome. Tessa, Take what you need and leave what you don't. And know that in this space, you don't have to earn rest. You don't have to explain your limits. And you don't have to pretend that you're okay when you're not. I'm Tessa, also known as the Spoonie Ninja, and this is Living on Borrowed Spoons. Thank you for being here, and I'll talk to you next time. Bye.
