I Won WEGO Health Activist Hero!

I just won Health Activist Hero in the Fifth Annual WEGO Health Activist Awards!  I want to thank everyone for your support!  I especially want to thank people who nominated me for the WEGO Health Activist Awards and those who voted for me in the first round–the nominees with the top vote totals became the finalists.  A panel of judges decided the winner among a handful of finalists; many judges were winners from previous years.  This was my third consecutive year being a Finalist so I didn’t really think I would win.  In fact, I stepped out of the shower a couple minutes before the ceremony, which was live streamed on Facebook. (I thought I was becoming the Susan Lucci of the WEGO Health Awards, which was fine by me as all of the other finalists have done amazing things and I always wanted to be Erica Kane.)  WEGO Health is in Boston.  Since I don’t live there, I was watching from my bedroom as WEGO’s Julie Cerrone opened the envelope.  Click here to see a video of the ceremony.  (The Hero category starts at ~8:30.)

Testimonials 

Here are a few testimonials from readers who nominated me:

Jessica offers transparency and grace as she trailblazes the way for others in highly stigmatized areas of rare disease like mental health and she does so with humor and a fashion sense.  — Rebekah

Jessica is always there for anyone to talk to. She talks about things (mental health) that other people are often afraid to talk about. She has made my life better by being my friend and supporting me in my own health advocating endeavors.  — Tyler

You can read other testimonials from Fashionably ill readers here on WEGO’s site.

The Other Finalists

I want to acknowledge the other Finalists for Health Activist Hero this year, who all do amazing advocacy work!  You can see their profiles here.

https://youtu.be/PgWEDVIFGN0

–Your Stylist, Jessica Gimeno