Hey!

First, I must thank you for taking a moment to visit my site. I'm Courtney G. Smith, one woman who has had a pretty interesting, fun and sometimes unpredictable life since being diagnosed with the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis in 2001.

In 2006, I had this idea to produce an award-winning documentary about women and autoimmune diseases. I titled it Beauty Does Lie: The Untold Stories of Autoimmune Diseases.The title just seemed to capture what I had been going through over the years with my health. And the seven women featured in the documentary pretty much told my story. Then, wouldn't you know it -- Beauty Does Lie was picked up for distribution by Fanlight Productions in 2007. Now this was a total surprise to even me!

Now fast forward to the following year when Beauty Does Lie was selected for presentation at the Western Psychological Association Convention and received a Merit Award for Video at the National Health Information Awards. I was pretty excited during the summer of 2008. All was well, and I was a very happy camper until I had a blood clot in my neck which ultimately lead to hemorrhaging and three blood transfusions in September 2008.

(Okay, so I know you're thinking that's pretty heavy stuff, but that's small potatoes compared to what happened next.) Three weeks after being released from the hospital, I was involved in a car accident which resulted in a broken neck, and I spent the next 6 weeks in a neck brace. I decided that I would spend this time with friends laughing a whole lot.

Then in June 2009, in the middle of me training for the Chicago Marathon (yes, you heard me right) I unexpectedly had to have surgery. Four weeks after surgery I convinced one of my best friends that we needed to film an audition tape for Amazing Race because we were both on our last dollar at the time. So with stitches and all we filmed it! But like most productive procrastinators we never sent it into CBS. I did, however, include the audition tape on my website for your amusement (CLICK HERE TO WATCH). I hope you enjoy learning more about me and seeing some of the fun stuff I do. I invite you to browse through the interesting and enlightening information on the site. I promise that at the end of your visit you will leave with a smile on your face !