Private Chef, Writer & Podcaster
After years of battling sarcoidosis and heart failure, I’ve realized that “sick” is just a word—and it doesn’t define me. Between migraines, acupuncture needles, and medical humor that borders on dark roast, I’m still standing, breathing, and occasionally brisk-walking on flat ground.
Living with chronic illness and heart failure has taught me one thing—complaining doesn’t fix a damn thing. As a chef juggling sarcoidosis, a leaky heart, and life’s general nonsense, I’ve learned that silence isn’t denial—it’s survival. Here’s how I stopped whining, started adapting, and found a strange kind of peace in just getting on with it.
As a chef battling sarcoidosis and heart failure, debris from a life that refuses to behave, I’m here to tell you why Halloween — creepy skeletons, gore-fest lawns, serial-killer mannequin dioramas and all — feels wrong in a way that psychology backs up. If you’ve ever felt alienated by the “fun” of Halloween or want to understand why it grates on your nerves (and mine), read on for a mix of sarcasm, heart, and insight into fear, ritual and chronic illness living.
There was a version of me in 2002—forty years old, a working chef, exhausted in ways that made no logical sense, and listening to doctors insist that every alarming symptom was “stress.” Now that sarcoidosis is a familiar part of my vocabulary, looking back on that time feels like watching a movie where you want to yell at the character to turn around. Revisiting that moment made me rethink the “what if” game entirely and wonder how differently life looks when you finally know what your body was trying to tell you.
Tate Basildon 