"If I could sum up 2025 in just one sentence, it would be the following: "That wasn't on my bingo card." It's a phrase people often use to describe life's unexpected moments, and in my case 2025 was full of them. I had a persistent cough that led to my being hospitalized and diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease (definitely not on my bingo card)."
"It changed the rhythm of my life and, in some ways, made it predictable. I can count on daily medications, monthly bloodwork, and regular imaging tests and specialist appointments. But, in other ways, my life is now full of curveballs - like when my disease unexpectedly flared up again, and I was hospitalized for a second time."
"During that second hospitalization, I couldn't sleep. One night, I found myself doing some late-night scrolling and came across a video with the following caption: "This is your sign to make a 2026 bingo card." In the video, TikTok user Giuliana Olmos created several bingo cards and used stickers and markers to fill the squares with handwritten goals, such as read 6,000 pages, go to a Dodgers game, and explore a new city."
2025 brought an unexpected autoimmune diagnosis after hospitalization for a persistent cough, changing daily life with medications, monthly bloodwork, imaging, and specialist visits. The condition introduced routine predictability alongside sudden flares, including a second hospitalization that disrupted plans and sleep. During that stay, late-night scrolling revealed a TikTok trend of bingo-card vision boards, in which creators filled bingo squares with handwritten goals like reading thousands of pages, attending a baseball game, or exploring a new city. The bingo-card vision board offered a gamified, flexible method to reclaim control, set achievable goals, and inject playfulness into a life governed by medical care.
Read at Apartment Therapy
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