This is Ingrid, dancing, dreaming and living her life with grace. By looking at her, you’d never know she also happens to be living with illness. This is because Ingrid pursues possibility. Her determination for a free, joyful, empowered life inspired the creation of Pillid.

Ingrid’s mother Jennie grew up with a father, Norm, who taught her to dream big. Norm passed on his love of piloting small aircraft. Flying was his metaphor for life. Norm undertook the vital pre-flight systems checks meticulously, stressing to Jennie the importance of each step. He taught Jennie that the freedom to fly in life stems from organization and preparation. For Norm and Jennie, the path to peace and joy involves minding the details.

When Norm passed away, Ingrid and Jennie didn’t have a clue how much they’d depend on his legacy. Six years later, Ingrid was diagnosed with a rare, incurable autoimmune disease called Juvenile Dermatomyositis (also known as JM). Countless hours in hospital waiting rooms became countless hours of thinking and talking about life, and how to best live it. Ingrid’s determination, tenacity and strength kicked in. She made a conscious choice to transcend the diagnosis, and live the life she dreams of anyway. Jennie went into full “Norm mode”, researching and re-organizing their new normal. She became Ingrid’s champion in the quest for remission.

Ingrid’s medication, vitamin and supplement routine is complicated. And it must be followed with meticulous care. Jennie tried numerous methods of organizing Ingrid’s regimen and settled on this: She taped Ingrid’s pills to the side of her water bottle everyday so Ingrid could be free to dream, to dance, to grow.

Pillid was born out of Jennie’s love for her daughter and her desire to create a life of hope and freedom for her. While performing the daily ritual of preparing medications, the simple solution appeared:

Keep all the pills safe, dry and available, not ON the bottle, but INSIDE the lid.

And Ingrid is on her way to taking flight. Her health is improving. Her treatment, which she follows to a T everyday, has her dancing straight towards remission. She’s not missing a beat. Tapering her medications is a long, slow process, but it is happening. Ingrid can’t wait to leave JM in the dust. When she reaches remission, she wants to throw a huge dance party!