Remembering how I had an allergic reaction one summer. Complete with hundreds of hives all over my back and my throat swelling. And I had to go to the ER and get an IV of antihistamines.

And then I went to the allergist and they didn't see any new allergies on the test so the allergist said THAT I MUST HAVE BEEN BITTEN BY BUGS AND DIDN'T NOTICE. THAT I WAS BITTEN MY HUNDREDS OF BUGS THAT GAVE ME HIVES. NOT BITES. AND I DIDN'T NOTICE. AND YES HE WAS A MAN

I don’t know what to do anymore, in november i started having non-epileptic seizures, they started off with one every few days and progressed into having multiple per day. i ended up being stuck in a hospital for a few days to try and figure out what’s wrong with me. they couldn’t give me an answer, they prescribed me some medicine to slow down my heart rate and sent me home. after having that medicine in my system the seizures stopped but then i started passing out. but it’s weird because i never actually lose consciousness. i can still hear, i just can’t move or speak, my whole body goes limp. i can’t even open my eyes. they started getting really bad where some of them i couldn’t breathe and would be like that for 10-15 minutes. (most of the normal episodes only lasted up to a minute) so i went and saw my doctor and she sent me to the er. they did some tests and it came back that i had a blood clot. so they did more tests. turns out i had four. two in my arm and one in each lung. so they admitted me into the hospital for a few days. my “passing out” episode became worse while i was there. they couldn’t find out what was causing these episodes. but on the good side they found out that the reason i had the blood clots was because of my birth control. so now i’m on blood thinners, and if the clots come back after i’m off of them they said i’ll be on blood thinners for the rest of my life. so now i’m back home and i’ve almost been home for a week and the “passing outs” have not stopped. actually they’ve gotten worse. yesterday i passed out 13 times. mind you i woke up at 11 am took a nap from 4-6 pm and went to bed at midnight, so in just 10 ish hours i passed out 13 times. it’s to the point i can’t do anything. i walk- i pass out. i lay in bed- i pass out. i play games- i pass out. i go to the fricken bathroom AND I PASS OUT. I TAKE A SHOWER AND I PASS OUT. I EAT AND I PASS OUT. anything i do i pass out. so i’m pretty much stuck in bed all day. the only time i get up is to go pee, ride with to pick my boyfriend up from work, and get food. that’s it.

so why am i posting this on my ED account? because i feel so so so lazy that i don’t deserve to consume food. i can’t burn it off, i can’t use it for energy because i don’t do anything all day. so i feel like there’s no point for me to eat anything now. and the sick part is i’m happy about it. i’m happy that now i finally have a good reason not to put food in my body. and i’ll finally lose weight. i’ve been stuck losing and gaining the same 5 pounds the last three months. but hopefully now i can finally lose the weight. i’m tired of being this big, i miss when i was skinny. i miss it so freaking bad. and all i want is to be skinny again.

(also the number of “passing out” while writing this is two, im literally just laying in bed typing this and i’m passing out.)

i accidentally unfollowed trying to send this ask the 8 year streak we had is broken!! anyway top 5 pets youve treated

Oh no!!! Tumblr may have noticed, but I sure didn't so I say it doesn't count lmao

This is so hard - I have so many patients that I love! I'll do my favorite "firsts."

Benji -- A middle-aged domestic short hair with heart disease. I was doing dental surgery for his god awful teeth and was worried about his heart. Surprisingly, it was not his heart that gave us problems, but he DID begin having seizures under anesthesia. He was the first cat (and only so far) that I had to send to the ER immediately after coming out of surgery. He spent the night in the ER, but he hasn't had any seizures since! I won't anesthetize him ever again, but I love him so much and his owners are very nice! They built him a fenced in outdoor cat condo that he can access via a bridge from their 2nd floor window 😭❤

Bella -- An old pitbull x blue heeler mix that developed a lipoma (fatty tumor) the size of a baseball on her neck. It was the first tumor removal I did as a doctor, and when I peeled it out, I could see her carotid artery (the artery that runs next to the jugular vein) pulsing! It was super cool. Her mom brought her in a trash bag "coat" to her recheck appointment because it was raining and she didn't want the incision to get wet and dirty.

Steve -- An older large mixed breed scruffy terrier thing on short legs with a long body who developed bladder stones. He was the first stone removal surgery I did! It was a big spiky stone that was stuck to his bladder wall, and it took forever to detach it. He did so well after surgery though! He eventually passed away due to a bladder tumor that mom didn't want to remove since he was an old man, but he was perfect. He also needed a party hat because otherwise he would bite us lol.

Mack -- A young cat who had a urinary obstruction (common in young male cats), usually due to stress, and causes crystals, infections, and/or mucus plugs. His mom is an older woman who didn't want to take him to the ER, so I sedated him and passed a urinary catheter for the first time to unplug his urethra. He hasn't had any problems since, so hopefully it was a once and done problem! In a lot of cats it recurs, and some cats need to have surgery to make their urethra short and wide like a female.

Dolly -- A young pitbull who was picked up by a good samaritan after getting stabbed in Philly. All of the Philly shelters were full, so the finder drove like an hour and a half to our shelter. She was the first leg amputation I did all by myself, and it took FOREVER because she was so beefy and muscular. She was such an angel though! Despite having been stabbed multiple times, she loved everyone and everything and was so happy.

I legit cared about him deeply. I worked on myself so much to be a better partner to him and for him. He did not put in the same work to be better to me and for me. I fixed my fuckups in our relationship, he “forgot” about his in short order and guilt tripped me whenever I made him take accountability. He broke my $600 antique lamp. He broke my dryer. He broke six different bongs. He broke the washer too. He let his cat piss on everything and let the laundry mold in the basement. He let my $110 body pillow to keep my bones from hurting go moldy and put me on a guilt trip for the expense to replace it (the one singular thing of mine he destroyed I made him replace). He broke nice antique dishes he knew were important to me. He put a hole in a painting my friend did for me. He ran my car into the neighbor’s truck. He piled up months of old litter multiple times even after I told him to cut that shit out. He broke so many of my dishes fuck. He would not do chores on his own nor would he do them when told and the rare instances I could get him to actually do chores he would fuck them up and destroy my things in the act. We lived in absolute filth because he and his pets created so much mess it was too much for me to keep up with and he did not contribute to the cleaning literally at all.

My fuckups were getting his car stuck in the mud at the bottom of a shitty country road (which I was able to get back out after a couple hours when the mud solidified), not locking his bike to the fence and it got stolen (I gave him a new bike which he “forgot” about and continued to guilt me over for months and ultimately left in my basement (I ain’t giving it to him now lmfao)), I broke his dab rig (and bought him a new bong after), told him I hate his pets and they make my life worse (not a fuckup honestly, I was actively bleeding out of my literal eyeball from his out of control cat’s bullshit while we sat in the ER waiting room when I said this. His dog’s constant barking has given me seizures on multiple occasions. I’m justified in that one his pets are awful) and I complained about him here on Tumblr (my diary, which I’ve told him not to read if he can’t handle my unfiltered thoughts). I really put effort into fixing what I did wrong and making it right. I owned up to my mistakes. My ADHD certainly influenced these mistakes but it did not stop me from acknowledging my wrong doing, correcting them, and not doing them again.

He destroyed thousands of dollars worth of my things and guilted me over the expense of replacing exactly one of the things he ruined. Blamed his poor money management on dyscalculia. Blamed his absence of coordination on being partially deaf in one ear. Blamed his inability to remember to do anything on ADHD. Blamed his manipulative meltdowns over my hurt on BPD. Like dude…. They’re are all certainly things that influence your behavior, yes, but that does not mean that they get you off the hook for the consequences of your actions. They do not mean that you don’t have to take accountability and try to fix these mistakes, learn from them, and avoid them in the future.

What broke our relationship wasn’t even all these mistakes it was him telling me that he is incapable of doing better.

Life Update since I hadn't been on here in forever

The pandemic was/is wild! Lockdowns started literally around the time we were going to the fertility specialist to get her pregnant. I lost my job to COVID in March shortly before we did the procedure, but we decided there's never really a good time to have a kid. Why not during a global pandemic when one of us in unemployed? (BTW, I don't recommend having a kid during a pandemic. Not being able to go to all of the appointments and having to sit in the parking lot was brutal.)

Let's talk about May friends...it was rough. (TW for mention of suicide btw. I'll post a gif where it's safe to start again if you wanna skip over it.)

So May 1st is the anniversary of my father's suicide. It had been 4 years. I found his body and since he wasn't married, I had to handle his affairs and arrange his funeral. May 1st, 2020 my wife and I had a Zoom game night with our friends and I got drunk because everyone was drinking (except my wife because she was pregnant). After our game night at like 2am, I had a psychotic break. I threatened to kill myself numerous times. My wife tried to talk me down, but eventually called the cops to take me. I thank her for that because looking back, that was the moment I knew something needed to change. I was convinced the cops were gonna kill me because I'm a trans dude in rural West Texas. I legit took the phone out of my wife's hand, hung up on 911, and yeeted her phone across the backyard and tried to hop the fence. Eventually the cops came and talked me down. They took me to the hospital an hour away in handcuffs (for their protection I did nothing wrong). They took me to the religious hospital that I was born in. So when they looked up my info by my name and date of birth from my driver's license (I only changed my middle name) literally all my paperwork and my bracelet had my deadname and wrong gender despite all of my legal stuff saying male with my new middle name. I mentioned it to them and they didn't care. They misgendered me the entire time I was there. I had hit my head hella hard on the bath tub when my wife was trying to snap me out of it, did the hospital even check me for concussion? Nope. I had punched so many things and my hand and wrist were swollen and discolored. Did they check out my hand and wrist? Nope. I was there for over 10 hours before I was able to convince them I was okay and that it was just the alcohol. Did I mention during that 10 hours I was literally out in the hall on a gurney with no mask and this was when COVID was running rampant in Texas (the first time)? I heard people die that night. I had nothing to distract me because they took away all of my personal items and clothes. My wife picked me up and we went home and I have been sober ever since. It's not the first psychotic break I've had with alcohol in my system. Alcohol just doesn't agree with me, but I'm finding new things to replace it with.

TW has been lifted...it's safe now.

A couple of weeks after that I began teletherapy because I had been on the same mood stabilizer and anti-depressant for almost a decade. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that I felt like it hadn't been working for at least a year. This is a reminder to check in with your doctor if you feel like your meds aren't working. You may just need a different dose or a new med. There's no shame in that. I bounced around on various medications trying to find the right combo, some side effects scarier than others, but we got there. Before this, I had been diagnosed with ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. My therapist threw out my Borderline diagnosis and said it was CPTSD instead, which made sense.

Fast forward to December because my wife was pregnant, I was unemployed still, and we did absolutely fuck-all because the global panini was still raging.

Our son was born on December 3, 2020. He weighed 5lbs 9oz and scared the ever loving shit out of us. He wasn't breathing when he was born so they called NICU in ASAP. I'm freaking out because I can hear and see what's going on while my wife was asking if he was okay as they put her guts back in place to sew her up. 5 or so minutes pass and a nurse asks if I want her to take some pictures. I'm like is he okay, he still hasn't cried. She's like "oh yeah, he's chillin." This goon was being held by a nurse and was just looking around not crying or anything. Chillest baby ever (he still is btw). I held him next to my wife's head until it was time to go back to the room. Little dude did have to spend 4 nights in the NICU because he couldn't keep his sugars or temperature regulated, but he was healthy otherwise. He's now 4 months old and is starting to sit up on his own a little bit and he's OBSESSED with standing. He's still a little guy, but very healthy and growing like a weed. He saves my life daily.

So after being unemployed for over 9 months, I started a new job working in a call center. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. It gives me anxiety and throws me into panic attacks, but I had been putting out hundreds of job applications since I lost my last job and this was the first offer I got. I wasn't really in a position to turn it down since my unemployment had ran out 2 months prior. It was 2 months of training, then we'd be on our own. I got thru the training and thought I could handle it...until they started putting us on live calls with someone helping us if we got stuck. My mental health hit the lowest point it had in a few years and my wife was terrified she was going to lose me. She convinced me to quit on February 28th (not because I didn't want to, but because I'm a stubborn ass who felt guilty). My meds got tweaked a little bit more dosage wise during this mess.

Starting about mid-February, I was experiencing severe shakiness, tremors, and spasms. I've always been a shaky person and never really thought too much about it, but at some points I could barely feed myself, or get a drink, or hold my son. On March 7th, I tried to make an appointment with my doctor about the weird symptoms I was experiencing, but she was out of town and her next opening wasn't until the 31st. My body said that won't work and my wife rushed me to the ER on the 9th...I had begun having seizures that day. I had no previous history of seizures. Got to the ER and had a seizure literally as I was walking thru the door, so they rushed me straight back. They took some blood and that was literally it. No MRI. No CT. They pumped me full of Ativan and said it was just a panic attack and to go home and chill.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't just anxiety. I was having 20+ seizures a day. On the 10th, my wife rushed me to a different hospital...the good hospital over an hour away. First we had to drop off our gremlin with my mom to make things a little easier. Yet again, I had a seizure as I walked in the door and was taken back immediately. I don't really remember much because they kept pumping me full of Ativan and morphine because I had been in excruciating pain from the number of seizures I'd had. I do remember them doing a CT pretty quickly after I got there. Then they weren't happy with the results of the CT, so they took me to get an MRI, which showed possible signs of Multiple Sclerosis (but I didn't find that out until AFTER the notes showed up in my patient portal after being home a few days, so I raised hell...more on that later.) They did a 24 hour EEG on me and it showed nothing abnormal. Also, EEG glue is a bitch on your hair and scalp. After looking at everything and given my previous mental health history, they diagnosed me with Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, or PNES. It is a subset of Functional Neurologic Disorder, or FND. I couldn't walk well anymore and had to use a walker when I was discharged. I was in the hospital for 3 days.

When I had my follow-up appointment on the 23rd, I asked why the possibility of MS was never mentioned to me since it was very clearly in the notes. The doctor didn't have an explanation. He called in a referral to neurology so I could get a 2nd MRI to confirm MS and marked it as high priority. He also didn't take my pain seriously. My pain levels had been at a 5 or higher every single minute since they took me off of the morphine in the hospital. He told me to keep taking prescription strength doses of ibuprofen and Tylenol, which I had been. I let him know I had been and it didn't even take the edge off the pain. He ignored me. Leading up to this appointment, I had also added urinary incontinence to my growing list of symptoms and was forced to wear diapers so I didn't have to do laundry all the time. The doctor also took me off my ADHD meds because they were lowering my seizure threshold. He also took me off of my sleeping meds and nightmare meds for the same reason I'm assuming.

I kept my appointment on the 31st with my primary doctor because she's been my doctor for 5 years now and I knew she'd take my pain seriously. She did. She immediately wrote me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and Tylenol 4. She also told me that my referral had been rejected by neuro. She said my case wasn't a good one for what she called a "wallet biopsy" and the doctors in neurology could be real assholes. She immediately sent the referral to other locations to get an approval. I am still waiting on that despite it being marked as high priority. She wrote me a prescription for a wheelchair because we both agreed my wheelchair was not enough for particular days.

Yesterday my wheelchair was finally ready for pickup, so my wife drove me to go get it. I'm still unable to drive due to my seizures and my tremors and twitches as it's predominantly in my legs and arms. I am an ambulatory wheelchair user now. Some days I can go short distances without my walker, some days I can't go without my walker, some days I can't even get out of bed, and some days I will be using my wheelchair. Don't judge a book by its cover, not all disabilities are visible. I have managed to keep my daily seizure count down in single digits and have even had a few seizure free days. They are still incredibly taxing on my body. I feel like I can't ever replenish my spoons fast enough to keep up with anything in my life.

So all in all, life has been chaotic. We are moving from Texas to New Mexico in the next few weeks, which should be interesting considering I can't overdo it without throwing myself into seizures. We will be closer to my mother-in-law so she can help us with our son and I can start resting a bit more on the more difficult days. Being a stay-at-home dad with an invisible illness has been one of the most challenging things I've done in my life, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Sorry this is so long. I just wanted to update my followers since it's been over a year since I posted before a few days ago.

I want to start off by saying I love your docs, and spent like an hour reading them, and then asking for a really angsty malcolm x reader where she had a son that she lost before they met and only Gil knows about it, and they’re a case of something about kids dying, and end the end it’s too much and she breaks down and Malcolm is there and comforts her? Maybe she goes a little insane and he has to stop her from doing something?

Please take the trigger warnings very seriously. Some people may find a lot of the content very disturbing.

Trigger Warnings: Extreme child abuse, abuse of an infant, murder of an infant, medical tragedies involving an infant that leads to death, violence against a woman.

Word Count: 1,554

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Gil stood in front of the doorway to the house. He reached his arm out to stop (Y/N) as she was approaching the threshold. “I don’t think you should work this one.”

“What do you mean? I’ll be fine. This is my job. I can handle anything.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Gil had a stern look on his face. “I don’t think you can come back after seeing this.”

“I said I’ll be fine. Just let me through.” She pushed his arm out of the way and followed the trail of forensic investigators to one of the bedrooms upstairs. A group of them parted to let her into the room. Before her was the body of an eighteen-month old.

He was clearly beaten to death. He was covered in bruises, and there was an indentation on the back of his head where he had been thrown against the wall. The evil that lead to his demise was heavily contrasted by the pure face of a sleeping angel.

The room was nearly silent. Everyone’s imaginations were running rampant with images of a baby being beaten, and the bone-chilling cries he would have let out. All that could be heard were the whispers between forensic scientists and Edrisa as she examined the body. The room was silent enough that (Y/N) could hear the father sobbing in the living room downstairs.

(Y/N) pulled herself away from the scene to go talk to the father. She found him distraught, with red and puffy eyes. (Y/N) just listened to his conversation with Dani.

“I’ve been gone on a huge business trip for about a week. I thought I could trust my wife to take care of the baby, but I was wrong. I was so wrong…!” He was hunched over himself, holding his eyes as he continued to cry. “She’s just been so angry lately. I don’t know what’s wrong, but she doesn’t want to be around the baby. She kept complaining that her head hurt, and the baby was making it worse. I thought they would be ok together while I was gone, but…”

Dani was calm when she spoke. “Do you know where your wife might be?”

“I have no idea. She doesn’t have any family around here, and she has alienated herself from her friends because she has been so angry.”

They gave him their condolences and went back to the precinct to start investigating the whereabouts of the suspect. When they got there, Gil pulled (Y/N) to the side. “Are you ok? I really think you should sit this one out.”

“I can’t. I… I need to see that justice is served for this baby.” Even though she claimed she was alright, there was a storm deep inside her. It was filled with rage, sadness, and even a touch of jealousy. She was jealous that this woman had a living, healthy baby while hers was not.

Gil didn’t want to push her, so he let her stay on the case against his better judgement. Malcolm noticed that something was wrong with (Y/N), but he just assumed that she was deeply disturbed by the nature of the case. As they were discussing their leads, another officer told them that there was activity on the suspect’s credit card. They tracked it to a local motel, and the team decided to go apprehend her.

They decided to split up when they got there, just in case. Malcolm and (Y/N) stuck around the outside of the building where they could see if the suspect fled in a different direction than they thought she would. Surely enough, as Dani and JT were knocking on her door, (Y/N) saw the woman dart out from the exit on the side of the building. She ran after the suspect, and she was faster than Malcolm. When (Y/N) caught up to her, she tackled her to the ground and started punching her in the face.

Malcolm tried to pull (Y/N) off of her when he got to them, but in her anger, (Y/N) accidentally hit Malcolm in the face. He staggered backwards, surprised, and watched as (Y/N) continued to beat the woman into a bloody pulp. Malcolm tried to pull her off of the suspect again, lifting her up by her arms as he linked them with his own. As he pulled her off of the woman, (Y/N) started kicking her. When the others ran over to Malcolm and (Y/N), they found the suspect on the ground, unrecognizable through the blood that covered her face.

Gil exclaimed, “What happened here?!” He looked at (Y/N), still held back by Malcolm, and saw that she was crying.

She started to shout, her voice strained through her tears. “That’s how your baby felt!! Your own child!! That is what he felt during his last moments on this earth, and you did that to him!! He was just a baby!! He wouldn’t understand anger, because he should only know love!! You didn’t deserve to be a mother!! You don’t deserve to be happy ever again!! I hope you are beaten every single minute of every single day so that you will never forget what you did to that sweet, innocent child!!”

The suspect started to cry, and none of them were sure if she was crying because of her physical pain, or if she was crying because of the death of her baby and (Y/N)’s words. Gil yelled at Malcolm to pull (Y/N) away before she could do any more damage. He took her to the opposite side of the building where they could have some privacy.

He couldn’t hide his confusion and surprise. “What happened back there?!”

Her anger turned to sorrow as she sat on the ground. Malcolm kneeled down to be at eye-level with her, but she still averted her gaze. He waited for her to speak, and she finally did so with a small, sad voice.

“How can a mother not love her child? How can she find such evil in her heart that she’s compelled to beat her own baby to death? The screams and the cries of that baby… How could she inflict such pain and not even care?”

Malcolm’s voice was low and calm. He wanted to talk her through this, because it was clearly very disturbing for her. “I don’t know. We may never know.”

(Y/N)’s voice started to crack and squeak because she was crying so hard. “I would give anything, even my own life, to hold my baby in my arms again. I couldn’t save my baby, and she willingly gave hers away? She didn’t even give him away, she inflicted pain upon that innocent baby. She didn’t want her child, and I can’t imagine a life where I will never miss my own.”

Malcolm was shocked. (Y/N) had a baby? She never told Malcolm about him or why she no longer had him. Gil was the only person that knew, because he was there to watch her grieve. But a mother’s grieving for her child is never really over, is it?

Malcolm’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “You had a baby?”

(Y/N) nodded her head as she sniffled. She was crying so hard that her nose was uncontrollably running. “My little Henry. He was taken from me far too soon. I still love him so much.” Her voice squeaked again with her last words.

He was afraid to ask, but he wanted to prompt (Y/N) to talk about her baby. That was clearly what she needed to do right now, so that he could help her process her feelings about this case. “How did you lose him?”

She gulped. Her throat hurt from the strain of crying. “He had his first stroke a week after he was born. He seemed fine, except for some slight paralysis of his left leg. Still, I was so grateful that he was alive and smiling. But then he kept having strokes, and we didn’t know why. Sometimes he would have seizures because his brain had been damaged. My baby became trapped inside his own body, and I had no way of knowing if he was in pain. I held him every day and cried. I cried for hours, because I knew that he had already suffered more in his short life than I ever would. And just as he was approaching eighteen months old, he had his final stroke. It killed him.”

(Y/N) stopped and took a deep breath. She hadn’t talked about her baby in a long time, and it brought back all of the pain she had tried to keep contained within herself. Her words started to become unintelligible as she continued. “I miss him so much, but I feel like a terrible mother. Because I am glad that he finally escaped his pain, and his soul is free.”

Malcolm reached out and pulled her close. She clung to him, sobbing. This all made sense to him now. (Y/N) watched her son suffer, hoping he wasn’t in pain, and she was just exposed to a woman with no love for her baby at all. Nothing he could say would make this right. All he could do was hold her and wipe away her tears. And he was willing to do that for as long as it takes.

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Author’s Note: There was no place to fit this into the story, but I wanted to share what I thought of as I wrote this. After arresting the woman they found the motel room covered in vomit and multiple bottles of headache meds on the bedside table. During medical examination at the ER (she would have to be taken care of so she wouldn’t die in police custody) they found a big brain tumor. It affected her personality, making her angry, and made her capable of killing her child. This gave her the headaches, made her hearing super sensitive, and finally started to make her uncontrollably sick. She didn’t survive long enough to go to trial, but her lawyer would have pleaded insanity.

Is it ok for a 13 year old to vape?

No. In my experience with people who have vaped from a young age, I can tell you our ER has had multiple cases of young patients just trying to “be cool” and “blow big clouds”.

But I bet what those people didn’t tell you, was vaping kills you. Faster than cigarettes, might I add.

By the way, Vapestoreuae is the largest online vape shop for all brand vape in Dubai.

There’s no reason to vape at 13- or any age for that matter. Don’t. Do. It. Period.

Is a few big clouds really worth your friends attending your funeral because you had a seizure, or withdrawal symptoms that killed you? Is it worth having your parents cry when they have to hold the hand of their no longer living baby?

You’d not only be killing yourself, but anyone else who inhaled your second hand smoke.

You want kids? Pass. You’re heading down a road of addiction, and your children will suffer. They can be born will illnesses and even die because of the harmful chemicals used in vape juice.

Let me give you some background on WHAT vape juice contains and what we use those chemicals for today.

the biggest, most dangerous is a chemical we use on the human body after you die- it’s called Formaldehyde. After you die, this is the same chemical we use to preserve your body- it’s extremely toxic and can cause cancer- plus, you’ll never see someone use it without a FULL body suit, mask and gear. Does that tell you something?

Nickel, Lead and Tin. Let me begin this one by explaining that lead alone is extremely toxic to the body. If you ingest it, you can die from lead poisoning- think smoking it is any different? Tin and nickle, well, they get stuck in your lungs and form crystal like shards- kinda like glass. It can cause pneumonia and other serious health conditions- that ultimately lead to death.

that’s just a few, and I could continue. But let me ask you this, if these ingredients are deadly or lethal on their own, what do you think would happen if you combined them into a tiny pod or container and took them all in at once?

I hope you steer clear of them. I wish you the best.

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Me a year ago. Me before I spent a whole year fighting to get where I wanted to be. And today while everyone gets to dress up and be someone else for the day, all I want is to be this woman again. Someone who felt strong, someone who felt resilient, someone who didn’t need anyone else’s help to do what she wanted to do. . . I took myself to the hospital not knowing that I would stay there for more than a week, not knowing that I could have died if I didn’t. Huge wake up call. I was a spectacle, because why was a perfectly healthy 29 year old woman in the icu of the stroke unit of a hospital? This 29 year old even got turned away at first by the ER and was just going to be sent home with migraine medication and a good night’s sleep. Go with your gut, advocate for yourself. You know yourself better than anyone and I’m saying this from both sides because I am also part of the medical field and sometimes things are overlooked because when you work in the field for a while sometimes you feel like you’ve seen it all or know it all. . . I stuck it out to find out that I had a blood clot in the cortical vein of the right side of my brain. The clot caused enough hemorrhaging into my brain to cause multiple seizures and as of now I only have partial control of my left hand and arm. I can’t drive for 6 months or more. I won’t be able to fully function at work or school, and using a microscope, or doing clinicals won’t be easy for a long time. I feel very weak and most days I simply just can’t face. I’m not apologizing but this is a fair warning; I’m going to be mostly sad, I’m going to have mood swings and I won’t want to do things, I’m going to have excruciating headaches, but please remember I’m still me. Eventually I’ll be💯% again but it will take some time.. and I think I have the most trouble with that fact. . . One last thing.. PSA..to all the FEMALES. the blood clot was likely caused by my oral contraceptive. Most birth controls have blood clots as a side effect. I was super lucky to get mine in the brain right? So please please ladies, pay attention to your body. Love yourself, take care of yourself.

Not to be really depressing but, sometimes I look back on what’s all happened to me since November of last year, and it’s honestly baffling all the horrific shit I’ve been through. My dad had been in crippling pain all summer and autumn last year, but tried to get through it bc he just thought it was sciatica. He started taking some of my granny’s absurdly strong pain pills because he didn't want to seek medical attention for his issue bc we have no health insurance, but I saw that he was only getting worse and wanted him to just get on indigent care bc mom had before and we were able to afford that medical help no problem, but he refused to. A month before his cancer diagnosis his behavior towards me changed dramatically, he started screaming at me over everything, cursing at me in horrible ways, and my mom just kept quiet about it because my dad said I deserved it for being a bitch at him. 

Then once dad got the cancer diagnosis, my mom fucking lost it. She was saying how we couldn't survive without my dad over and over and I had to be the comforter, but no one comforted me. I had to push all my feelings deep down because no one was well enough to listen to them or be there for me. We only knew about the spinal tumor then, we didn't even know it was malignant, or that he had a brain tumor and other small tumors on his spine. To this day my mom blames my dad’s brain tumor for his verbally abusive behavior towards me, but I just don't know. It still fucks me up because everything he said to me still is like open wounds on me. I’m still traumatized over it and all the things that happened after it.

Then just moments after my dog passed away after a miserable night of trying to keep her as comfortable as possible all night while suffering from multiple seizures and just trying to let her know I was there with her and she wasn't alone (she was blind), my dad became completely paralyzed and could not get off of the couch. He had also lost all control of his bladder and had apparently pissed in his sleep all over Christmas presents in the living room my mom had already wrapped beautifully. Mom assumed my dad had just took too many pain pills and it made him act that way.

But it only got worse from there. 5 days he stayed on that couch. Did not get off of it once. You can imagine the horror. His left leg had become completely numb due to the lymphoma on his spine damaging the nerves controlling it, and my mom discovered he had developed a huge bed sore on the back of that leg bc he had it against the couch for days bc he couldn't move it. My mom freaked, and I got upset and told them both he needed emergency medical attention NOW, but they wouldn't listen and instead said to give them 7-10 days to get indigent care and then MAYBE he’d go to the doctors. He would not have survived being on that couch immobile another 7-10 days. 

But on the 5th night, my mom and I were watching tv in the back room, and heard a noise in the living room like something had crashed over, so we went out to check and dad was on the couch knocking things off of the table next to him, and when my mom asked him what he was doing he talked complete nonsense, not a thing he said made sense. “I’m trying to buy lightbulbs with tim and this black man and youll know about them strawberries once you see them DONT ACT LIKE YOU DONT KNOW” it’d be hilarious if it weren't for the fact the brain tumor was messing with his mind, but we didn't know about the tumor at the time, and I had seen my dad have a couple of drinks that night, so my mom and I assumed he got drunk, which was EXTREMELY out of character for him, but since he was in such a pitiful state we though maybe it was enough to make him get drunk.

My dad continued on with his bizarre behavior, and I couldn't take it anymore, I called my granny (bc she lives right next door) and she showed up and saw him, and I stayed the night at her place bc I couldnt stand to be home anymore. I called my dad’s sister bc she lives in the same neighborhood too, and she went and checked up on him and thought he was drunk too. We all agreed that in the morning he HAD to go to the ER, and he did...after 5 firemen showed up to carry him out of the house into a car. He had become completely incontinent at that point and was an absolute mess no matter how much mom mom tried to keep him clean, so this was a completely disasterous situtation in every single way. My dad told us he had not been drunk that night and we all panicked bc we didn't know what else it could be. This all happened the day before Christmas Eve.

My dad’s ex-stepdad was the one who took him to the ER, and the hospital decided to try and remove the tumor through surgery the morning of Christmas Eve. That morning, my mom and I were home, but mom was going to be picke up and go to the hospital later and stay there all day, but they wanted to do the surgery earlier than expected, so the doctors called us bc they needed mom’s permission to do the surgery, so I bring the phone to my mom and she refuses to talk with them. I don't know what the fuck her deal was but I was having none of it and got really ugly with her until she answered the phone and gave them permission. She was all “THERE. YOU HAPPY NOW?“ So again I was hurting immensely yet was still getting kicked down and I was acting tough but honestly I was so alone and scared. 

Then my mom went to the hospital, and I went to my grandparents to try and help prepare for their Christmas eve party, all while trying to keep everyone updated on my dad, and a little after noon, my mom called my hysterical, telling me that the surgery was unsuccessful because the tumor wasn't solid enough to remove, and that after further scans they found other spinal tumors, and a tumor in his brain. again, I was calm and told mom not to lose it too much because there could be treatment for it, but honestly I was just in shock and in survival mode. Mom came back to my grandparents and we had the most miserable Christmas we’ve ever had. 

Dad continued on with his delirium until his brain surgery to remove the tumor the best they could back in January, then they did tests on the tumor and another month later we found out it was CNS lymphoma, an aggressive cancer, that likes to come back even after treatment. Back in May of this year after just 4 rounds of chemo, dad was pronounced cancer free, but his oncologist had him take over 7 more treatments, just to try and deter the cancer from coming back. Dad got his last treatment a month ago, and he’s still unable to walk, but with physical therapy he is making some progress. 

We’ve gone this whole year without income, bc my dad was the only one able to work, and disability has rejected dad twice this year despite him obviously being disabled. This month dad’s case for disability will go to court and i’m praying he gets approved this time, because just relying on my relatives is terrifying. The relatives ive had to rely on this year are the most toxic and verbally abusive people it’s been hell all year dealing with them. I’ve wanted desperately to get my license and be able to drive to get my own job, but my granny manipulated my dad to give his only working vehicle to her, and so I'm completely stuck rn. Trapped at my verbally abusive grandparent’s house bc my mom and I have had to live here all year instead of our own home bc we cant pay our utility bills rn.

I’ve dealt with so much trauma,so much discouragement, so much abuse from people closest to me this year, all while having untreated severe depression, anxiety, and severe suicidal ideation that I've had for over a decade now. This is only a fraction of what ive been through this year. There’s so much other horrible fucked up shit that’s happened to me I honestly cant deal with the reality of it all most days, but tonight is a night where everything is coming back to me, it’s just constant flashbacks of it all and I just cant believe it. I cant believe any of this has happened to me, but it has. It has and i’m terrified even worse is to come for me.

Sacred Song (Post 101) 8-12-15

                        Natalie and I have continued our game of YouTube tag throughout the last several weeks.  It passed the time nicely on our Maryland excursion, but we have also found that it is pretty fun to play on short expeditions as well.  The pop music stations that Natalie prefers become drearily repetitious when we don’t break things up, although it is entertaining to listen to her accompany the artist as a background singer.  Sometimes Nicholas sings along to his music as well, but I probably shouldn’t disclose that.  Playing music on YouTube instead means that I can intertwine songs that I like in between the sandwich ends of inevitable Taylor Swift anthems.

One night last week we carried the game of tune tit-for-tat that we were playing on our phone into the house, across the kitchen and to the breakfast table where my mother was getting ready to serve my father his supper.  Curious and knowing that he likes all things Gaelic, I pulled up a video of a scene from the movie Empire of the Sun in which a young British lad stands at attention and salutes through the barbed wire fence of a Japanese internment camp singing the Welsh lullaby Suo Gan as zeros takeoff into the sun. For me Suo Gan is a particularly haunting song because the melody is the same as the hymn Christ Before Us which I first encountered on my Emmaus weekend nearly two years ago.  Hearing a particular hymn at a peculiarly emotional time can add a spiritual impact to a song for a specific person that it may not have for other people.  Morning Has Broken can similarly bring tears to my eyes, because it was sung at Pam’s funeral service.

As it turned out my father’s love of Gaelic music did not include any special feelings towards the Welsh classic, but we did share some memories about walking into an English church in some town that I could not recall where we arrived just in time for an afternoon rehearsal of the parish boys’ choir.  They were very talented.  The idea of pulling up hymns on YouTube did intrigue my father, surprisingly.  He asked me to play Jesus I Come for him, which, he explained, was the hymn they were playing at the Tremont Baptist Church when he entered there for the first time. My mother had evidently invited him to her church when they were dating.  My father agreed; he would have also probably agreed to try bungee jumping had my mother suggested it and that particular form of stupidity existed anywhere else other than in the Australian outback at the time of their 1960’s courtship. Instead of the Sunday morning’s boredom that my father probably expected, he experienced a powerful intervention by the Holy Spirit into his life through the gateway of a beautiful hymn sung by a talented choir.

So I searched his request, queued up the hymn, hit play and passed him his favorite sacred music on the little midget screen of the IPhone5 that I most often use for scrolling Facebook.  Although the music didn’t sound special to me, it caught my 78 year old father like fly-paper.  He sat transfixed at the breakfast table totally oblivious to me and to the usual bustle of my family interacting about our kitchen at dinner time.  The kids could have been having chicken fights and he would not have noticed.  As far as I could tell, my father was 650 miles and 60 years eastward sitting in a pew in a famous New England church with the girl he loved, encountering awesome beauty of Jesus Christ sung about him by angelic voices.  I wished that he could stay there for longer than the odd five minutes of the hymn.  I envied him. For a time he was through the looking glass or had tumbled through the fur coats of the magic wardrobe that I often hope to find but rarely do.

You would think that it would be easier to have that type of heavenly experience than it usually turns out to be.  I had hoped for a trip back through the years to simpler times on the family excursion we took to a Cleveland Indians game last Friday night.  Nicholas, Natalie, Stephen and I made the trip, but it didn’t turn out quite as I had planned.  First of all I was very tired, having worked some early and long days on Monday through Thursday completing a project that we had begun almost a month before.  Things were also progressing well with our house purchase.  It seemed like a good chance for some family-style rest and relaxation. Also the Tribe was having a dollar hot dog night promotion with a fireworks show as a nightcap.  Our plan seemed all in order.

 Like a good father, I had wielded the proposed trip as a motivating sledgehammer thought the preceding week.  Stephen, for instance, because of his illness, habitually complains about small or imagined injuries like blackouts and falling out of bed on a near continual basis.  The last week he had added mysterious arm stiffness to his list of hypochondriac symptoms.  Whenever I offered to delay our trip until he felt better, his maladies made an immediate improvement.  Stephen is gravitationally attracted towards quality meat products at entirely too reasonable a price-point.  He is not above taste testing gas station sushi so dollar hot dog night is right up his alley.

Natalie was also on her best behavior throughout the week.  She was quite excited on Friday night when I arrived home from the boomerang ride of my Youngstown round trip.  That is when the threads of my carefully woven plan began to unravel. I had arrived home early and, unfortunately, exhausted, hoping to catch a quick cat-nap before H hour. Unbeknownst to me, Nicholas had committed me to driving over to my brother’s house to pick up Abby’s car for which my father was paying to have a stereo installed as a birthday present. I stayed awake for the mini-excursion that set us off our Cleveland bound time schedule by about an hour. We would be significantly late.  Strike one.

Still, we were a happy bunch as we drove towards the RTA Station on Shaker Blvd (RTA is Cleveland’s BART.)  Natalie and I sat together.  Nicholas and Stephen sat separately as Stephen had acquired a case of oppressive halitosis that he attributed to dry mouth from his medication.  Natalie and I talked quietly until our train came to a kerchunking halt at an interchange station for us.  Natalie, Nicholas and I assembled in column formation in the aisle. I looked over to Stephen to see why he was not following.  I could see that he had adopted a posture to arise, but was stuck in place.  He was frozen and I could tell that he was experiencing a focal seizure, the malady that he had been reporting to the disbelieving me for the last several weeks.  I had watched Pam have hundreds of focal and full seizures during the period of time between her two brain surgeries.  Like my dad’s trip back to Boston, I was transported to another place and time as I watched my son struggle to stand, a time that I had hoped never to visit again. Father Groeschel would describe that location as a point on the pathway inclining up a hill called Calvary.

Because he finally stood after a few dozen seconds and showed no ill effects, we decided to proceed to the game despite the scare.  I think I am glad we proceeded; it was an excellent and terrible outing all at once.  We got there late, but the seats were the best that I have ever bought – that’s what happens when Nicholas goes to the box office with my credit card.  Interestingly we discovered that Natalie despises hot dogs, but will eat three in close succession when she is starving and Nicholas is buying American sausages like he is feeding Slimer from the movie Ghost Busters. Stephen had another focal seizure with a similarly quick recovery when one of the Indians unexpectedly knocked a hanging curve into the bleachers to tie the game late.  It was an Indians game, though, so they lost in the ninth inning on a home run to a Twins outfielder that is old enough to have been in high school while I was in college. Happy that Stephen had made it through the game without a more significant medical incident we headed home without waiting for the fireworks.

So it is Tuesday, as I write this.  I am in the ER with Stephen to get his condition checked out.  He seems to be OK, but without a local doctor, the ER seemed the quickest alternative to get blood work, a CAT scan and access to medical specialists without the bureaucracy of referrals.  Frankly, I don’t care to be in another hospital, ever, but I realize that this is a necessary trip.  I would feel better if Father Luke from St John Vianny in Walnut Creek would happen in soon to anoint Stephen and pray with us, but I think we are out of his jurisdiction.  John Muir was tough to revisit for Nicholas’ treatment, anyway, but it was also seemed as comfortable as an old shoe, albeit with the possibility of a chance meeting transporting me back to a good or bad place in another lifetime.  

Today things turned out well with no bad news in either Stephen’s scans or labs.  I drove him home later after discharge thankful that he is relatively healthy.  We stopped on the way back at Arby’s and at one of the parishes that we might eventually choose as our own to visit Jesus in Adoration.  On the road again towards Streetsboro, I reconsidered again why all this inconvenience might have happened knowing that Stephen’s actual health remains largely the same.  Sure it was good to get him checked out, discover a good hospital and get assigned a family doctor for a follow-up visit, but why was I put through this dry run of worry and fear for the umpteenth time.  Was God holding me back a grade for some lesson that I should have learned one, two or three years ago?  

Then I remembered the conversation that I overheard among the doctors at the nursing station from my perch by the door of Stephen’s transient ER suite.  They were preparing to inform a patient and family that multiple unexplained lumps had been discovered throughout the lungs in some other poor patient’s scan. Thoughtfully, I removed the mini rosary that I had received at Emmaus from its place on my dashboard and prayed a Divine Mercy Chaplet for another family that got bad news while Stephen and I received our discharge paperwork.

Fucking Dammit

I was trying to type up a post about my ER visit that started about 13 hours ago and I'm not actually sure when it ended because I got drugged the fuck up, but then I accidentally exited out of the post cuz I have a new phone (finally) so occasionally I bump stuff and can't figure out what the fuck i just did.

Long story short, I have kidney stones again, for sure, and it appears there's one stuck somewhere, but on the left this time. And the main point of this post is that I hate all pain killers, they never work right for me (if they even work at all) but when I'm in excruciating pain I try them anyway and I almost always regret it later.

If there's a way to do a read more on mobile I don't know, so I'm kinda sorry that this is so long, but not TOO sorry because I never post anymore anyway, so it's not like I'm clogging up anybody's dash or something. Also this seems coherent to me, but as of a couple hours ago I was so out of it I could barely handle just picking my phone up and unlocking it, and typing anything took me for-fucking-ever, so this may not be the best.

So, spoilers, fucking dilaudid does basically nothing for my pain. And they gave me THREE shots of it. My mother and the nurse couldn't believe I was still awake. And when doctor came in to check on me and asked about my pain and I explained that at first it seemed like it was getting better but that then it just started getting worse, and he was like, well we can try giving you another dose, and I was like "uhhh, the nurse already did that. Twice. He's given me three shots of it already," and the doctor was like, "that should be enough to tranquilize an elephant, how are you awake???"

So then he decided to risk giving me toradol, which is an NSAID, and I have a possible allergy to them, and I was just like sure, I don't care, let's try it, because I was in SO much pain. And also he was gonna give me Benadryl too, and I wanted that because the dilaudid was making me really itchy by that point in time, so I really wanted that to go away as soon as fucking possible.

And now I really wish I hadn't.

To be fair I can't really say which drug (or which combination of them) is to blame for this, but it was the instant after the nurse finished giving me the shot of toradol via my iv port that I started coughing briefly, and then from that point on until hours and hours later, even after I left the ER, I felt like I could never catch my breath.

So to summarize, after getting an iv port thingie in my arm, they gave me dilaudid with some zofran at first, then another shot of dilaudid, and then ANOTHER shot of dilaudid over the span of what was definitely bare minimum 45 minutes, but I think might have been closer to an hour if not longer. I'm not sure because they took me to get an ultrasound in between shots 2 and 3.) And after that my pain level was still at a steady 7 and just seemed to be getting worse. Then they gave me Benadryl (to hopefully minimize/prevent an allergic reaction) and the toradol. I've had all of these things before, though the zofran was previously just the dissolve on your tongue variety which is fucking nasty and did nothing for my nausea in either form. And also I'm pretty sure they gave me dilaudid last year when I went to the ER for kidney stones and it didn't do shit that time either, so I should've fucking known it wasn't going to work, but I was in too much pain to remember for sure what it was they gave me that last time. But either way I didn't have problems with my breathing when they gave it to me that other time either.

So I'm pretty sure the toradol is too blame. Because there was a really really long wait until I got the toradol, as they had to get the pharmacy to approve it despite my potential allergy. And I've had Benadryl in an iv without toradol and It's fine, it makes me feel weird and sometimes makes me sleepy, but it doesn't make me feel fucking awful.

Because this was horrible. It got rid of almost all my pain, (and the Benadryl got rid of the itchiness) but the trade off was feeling horrible in other ways instead. I felt like my blood pressure had dropped or something, though I don't think it did because they were monitoring it. I couldn't catch my breath, and kept breathing too shallowly so then my blood oxygen levels would start to drop, and I started to feel more and more like I was either going to throw up or pass out. I got cold and clammy, and alternately almost felt feverish at times. I was so miserable I couldn't stop myself from whimpering basically, and I'm pretty sure I was crying a bit a couple of times, though only in front of my mom because I hate crying in front of people, even when it's totally warranted.

And then my hands got weird (like that time I thought I was dissociating but now I know that that isn't a normal thing for dissociating, and it usually only happens if I miss multiple doses of one of my meds) and they were stuck with my thumbs tucked in and it was so fucking hard for me to try to straighten them out, I could barely grasp a pen and sign my name, and my hands were also trembling, and my mom wondered if I was anxious or having a panic attack but I was like, no, I am not anxious or having a panic attack, this is different. But I don't think she, or the nurse or doctor really believed me. She also privately asked me when it was just us in the room if I thought I was having a seizure and I was like, I have no idea, I don't know what they feel like. And she sorta asked the doctor about it, but without actually saying the word seizure, but he didn't really have an explanation.

So the nurse and doctor didn't really know what to do with me and after a little were like well since your pain is better you can go whenever you want, we'll get started on discharge paperwork and stuff, but no rush, just whenever you're ready. Though it still felt like they wanted me to leave sooner rather than later. But then I got really really really nauseous and so they gave me a shot of a different anti-nausea medication in my thigh, but then I just started dry heaving periodically anyway. And I could barely withstand sitting upright but they SENT ME HOME ANYWAY.

Though, naturally, as soon as I got wheeled out into the parking garage I puked for real. And then held out till we got home before throwing up some more. So that shot of a different kind of anti-nausea medicine was real fucking helpful.

But yeah I finally feel more normal now. And have only been feeling more normal for maybe two or 3 hours tops. I can handle sitting upright, and even walked short distances in my house without feeling like I was going to pass out, hyperventilate, and/or puke.

So yeah, it's just been a super duper delightful wonderful past 18ish hours since my pain intensified yesterday afternoon at work.

So fucking great.

But I sincerely hope everybody else had a more pleasant day than I did yesterday and if you didn't, I am so sorry, you may come complain to me about it and we can feel miserable together 🖤

Though I'm going to go try to sleep some more now cuz it's it's after 6 am here and I haven't really slept yet, just kinda dozed off here and there.

I want to explain why I’m freaking out about about the AHCA/Trumpcare thing so much. This is gonna get long, so I’ll put it under a cut.

I have a younger brother. A number of years ago (around this time of year, actually), he started feeling not so good. He was 25. He was living at home with my parents. He was working for a game store and had no insurance. He wasn’t able to be on my parents’ plan anymore.Even though he was full time, the job didn’t have any benefits.

But he was in peak physical condition. Why did he need insurance?

So anyhow, he started having bad headaches. He was wearing sunglasses all the time--even indoors. He started having flu-like symptoms. He spent all of Easter in his room because he was feeling that terrible.

My parents wanted him to go to the doctor and he wouldn’t. A few days after Easter, my father discovered my brother was passing blood in his urine and forced my brother to go to the doctor. He practically had to carry my brother--my brother was that weak.

The doctor took one look at him and said ER. Now.

My brother was admitted immediately.

No insurance. But the way it worked then was they had to take him. Luckily my home state has always been pretty good about that sort of thing.

It turned out he had a cerebral aneurysm and it was bursting. Also, it turned out he had more than one aneurysm.

The bill for that first stay was over $50,000.

He almost died. He still has chronic short-term memory problems. He’s had multiple surgical procedures over the years. He functions. But every time he has a seizure, he’s that much closer to death.

My mom took over. She got him on Medicaid. She did the paperwork. She dealt with the social workers. She made ENDLESS phone calls.

But this is what is known as a pre-existing condition. And it has meant that he could NEVER be without insurance. COBRA which is what he would have to go on when he was between jobs, well, those payments were insane--at one point he had to pay over $1k a MONTH to stay covered. It meant that he would be stuck in absolutely hellish jobs because if he left employment there and his insurance lapsed, he might not be covered again.

I want to state again: My brother was 25 when this happened. In perfect health as far as we knew.

When you hear the Republican Congressman talking about returning power to the States--maybe if you’re in a solidly Blue state, you might be okay, but you are going to be screwed on an epic level if you don’t.

When you hear the Republican Congressman talking about high risk pools and why they need to be brought back, they’re ignoring the many, many people who have chronic conditions, who have things like this happen to them, to the people with family histories of cancer and heart trouble and god knows what.

This proposed legislation is going to hurt you. If not now, then very soon. 

“Decisions are made by those who show up.”

CALL now.

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

My Eating Disorder Story

  Eating Disorder My Story

For as long as I can remember, I was always a little heavier than my friends. From six years old on, I had a bigger shaped face, longer legs, and bigger breasts. I used to take pictures with my friends and not think anything of the fact that I was the bigger girl, I just was. I was athletic and had muscles, thicker arms from playing softball and swimming, and it made my Dad proud to know he was raising his daughter not to be a wimp. He used to tell me that I was from a “bigger boned family,” meaning that I’d never be as tiny as my friends Amanda and Tara, who were both the size equivalent of a ballerina that only ate twice a week.

As I got older, my fat sister wasn’t so fat anymore. She had lost all of her baby weight and was sporting crop tops and daisy duke shorts every time she returned home from college. I idolized her new hair cut, her collarbone peeking out from over her tube top, her non-jiggly thighs. I didn’t realize she had lost so much weight from a drug problem, or that she was unhealthily thin. I needed to be as tiny as she was, to follow in her footsteps, to be the cute girl that the neighborhood boys wanted to hang out with. Around that time my parents had split up, were constantly fighting, sticking me in the middle of their arguments. I heard how much of a crazy drunk my mom was from my dad, how abusive my cheating father was from mom, all the while drowning everything out with deep internet searches of Karlie Kloss, and binge watching America’s Next Top Model. That’s how it all started, being a kid lost in a divorce battle, just trying to find someone to look up to.

My first time skipping a meal was probably in seventh grade. I began just not going to lunch at school. Instead I’d go to the nurse’s office, to the computer lab, to the bathroom. I’d sit there and busy myself, throwing away the food that my mom had prepared me the night before. It wasn’t instantaneously noticeable, but I lost weight. My legs felt slimmer, and I was able to fit into my petite neighbor’s clothes easier. I then started to skip breakfast, which was easy because my mom was never too pushy about me eating anything in the morning. I’d started running, walking my dog more, exercising as much as I could. I was 13 and 5’7, and probably around 130 pounds, which was on the smaller side. My parents questioned the weight loss but then blamed the stress of their divorce, my changing body, and my increase of physical activity. My friends weren’t as blind though, and started outcasting me. Two girls I was close with started making fun of my weight loss, calling me Anorexic Annie, and telling me to kill myself. The taunting got so bad I tried to convince my parents to let me change schools, but without explaining to them why, there was no hope. I stuck it out at that school until I graduated, and it was on to high school in Manhattan.

My eating habits dwindled down to a mere small meal a day, sometimes less, in freshman year. I’d chosen a high school in Manhattan, far away from my home in Staten Island, just to escape everyone that I knew. I would take the 6:20 AM ferry to the city, and walk all the way from 24th to 13th street to get extra exercise in. Every chance I had I was skipping meals, and purging if I felt I had eaten too much. I went from a size 9 to a size 1 in a matter of months, without any repercussions. Until I stopped getting my period. My mom noticed because I had stopped asking her to buy me pads, and questioned when the last time I had menstruated was. I lied and told her it was two weeks prior, and she pressured me. I remember crying and begging her not to take me to the doctor’s, that it was normal to miss a few periods. She asked if it was also normal for me to be getting sick constantly, since at this time I had caught a cold every two weeks. She asked if it was normal for me to sleep until 2 PM every day that I could, if it was normal for me to bruise so easily, for me to suddenly become anemic. I told my mom for the first time in my life that day that I hated her and that I shouldn’t have been born, that I hated that she was my drunk mother, that she didn’t love me. I’m positive I selfishly broke my mother’s heart that day. She took away my phone for a month, and sent me a few blocks away to live at my dad’s house. There I shut myself away in my bedroom, sleeping and doing sit-ups. I’d leave only for school or to go to the gym with my other skinny friends, pushing my body to exhaustion. I walked everywhere rather than taking the bus simply because I liked how men looked at my teenage lanky body when they passed in their cars. It was disgusting, self absorbed gratification.

I continued this way all the way to college, seeing a therapist every other week that was no help, my weight fluctuating from 100-120 pounds, ending up in the hospital every now and then due to “unexplained” illness, struggling with dizziness and exhaustion. My hair started to fall out and I cut it all off. I went days without eating right before college, hoping to squeeze into some skinnier clothes that I had bought for my first week of school. I remember moving into my dorm and having my roommate tell me how skinny and pretty I was. My sister would come and visit and bring me junk food, which I gobbled up and then purged when she left. I felt like a prisoner in my own bones.

My first semester I was lost at college. I didn’t fit in anywhere, and what few friends I had made were always critical of my lack of food intake. Until I met Meghan, I was alone. When I met Meghan, I was sitting by myself outside of my dorm hall and she was playing her violin. She had thick meaty arms that were powerful and talented, and she was a larger girl. We talked about her music experience, and she commented how tiny I was, joking that I was a model. As our friendship grew, Meghan invited me over her house and would try and cook for me. She noticed that I would barely touch the food she made, and always tried to ask if it was because I didn’t like her cooking, or if something was going on. I blamed it on OCD, saying I was just particular about what I would and wouldn’t eat, and that she shouldn’t be worried. Meg continued to push me about why I was so thin, and prompted me to join a group of students that all got together twice a week for some guidance. She suggested I try a therapist, telling me that a professional would be able to help. When I was in my second semester of freshman year, I started weekly meetings with a school funded psychologist under the premises that I just “needed a little mental release.” What I found sitting in the offices of Dr. Kim was comfort and support, a woman that understood what I was suffering from. She recommended outpatient therapy groups, nutritionists, and worked with me to begin to eat again.

    At first it was absolute mental torture. I stopped fitting into size 1’s and 3’s. I filled out, and felt fat. I only ate peanut butter and apple slices for lunch, sticking to the same kinds of foods, trying to regain my control. But I noticed such a difference. I was emotionally overwhelmed with how much more energy I had, how everyone was telling me that I looked better. Meg was the most supportive for me, bringing me food at my dorm, talking me through the roughest stages of relapses, always hugging me as warmly as she could to let me know that I wasn’t alone. She always said that she was glad I was her best friend whenever she saw me, and it gave me a sense of self worth that I never had before.

When my parents came to visit, I had a long talk with my mom about me being in outpatient. She became aggravated telling me that I was being dramatic, that I didn’t have an eating disorder, I was just faking it. It was incredibly hurtful to me that she would belittle my struggles, and this harmed my progress for some time. I took three weeks off from therapy, and began making myself puke with a toothbrush every time I ate. My stomach burned with resentment and anger, and I lost several pounds in a matter of days. It was then that I made the worst decision of my life.

On March 19th of 2014 I tried to take my own life by swallowing a bottle of pills. I felt helpless, like my eating disorder had eaten away every last part of me, and I just wanted to escape the pain I was feeling from everywhere around me. My roommate found me doubled over on the floor in our dorm, clutching my stomach, half unconscious and called 911. I don’t remember much of that day, or the weeks after it. I know I had my stomach pumped and that I suffered multiple massive seizures in the ambulance on the way to the ER.  I was medicated and hospitalized for two weeks, most of which was spent with eating disorder specialists and a professional that diagnosed me with body dysmorphia, suicidal tendencies, OCD, and anorexia. I was discharged and left in the hands of my watchful sister. She sat me down and talked to me about her drug addiction struggles in college, and continually told me how much my family loved me. She cooked my favorite foods, and bought me new bigger clothes that were my “grow into” clothes, things that would fit nicely once I was fully healthy. Meghan was in my corner too, taking me for froyo, cooking me cookies, loving me as hard as she could. From beginning to end, my eating disorder took away almost all of my teenage years, and consumed my every thought for countless days and nights.

Now, at 22, I’m 180 pounds. I eat healthy but don’t restrict myself, and I’m proud of my shape. I went from a 30 A bra size to a 36 DDD with my weight gain. I’m now a size 12 in jeans, and couldn’t be prouder. As an adult I realize so much that I wish I had known as a kid. I discovered the power of self love, and how sexy a woman can be when she allows herself to truly be free of worry surrounding her shape or size. I’ve discovered how relaxing and enjoyable eating a nice fulfilling meal can be, how fun it is to try new types of foods and different restaurants. I’ve been successful in college and in my career life, and now live on my own in an apartment, without any full length mirrors. I try not to stress about what other women look like in comparison to me because we’re all shaped differently. I don’t get caught up on the Kardashians’ new bodies, or the latest ANTM episodes because I realize so many of those girls are miserable, trapped in their own bodily prisons. I wish as a teenager someone had told me how great it would feel to have a full head of hair that wasn’t constantly falling out, or how much better my body feels when I get my period normally rather than every few months. I can’t lie and say that I don’t feel fat every few days, but I also tell myself that it’s all relative, and that I’m blessed to be alive. My parents don’t speak about my mental breakdown or my eating disorder, but my sister does on occasion, and tells me how proud she is of me whenever she sees me. We’re now the same size in pants which is great because I can always “borrow” her jeans when I go to visit (and sometimes “accidentally” end up taking them home with me.) I’m still incredibly close with Meghan, although we live far away from each other now. When I go back to visit her we always get froyo and talk about how lucky we are to be friends. Now that I’m more mature, I realize how much of my struggle was peer pressure to look my best, and how much of it was also me grasping for power when I felt so weak in everything that was happening in my life.

If you’re struggling from an eating disorder, you aren’t alone. So many men and women struggle, especially teenagers and young adults. It’s hard to acknowledge when you need help, and sometimes you don’t realize until it’s too late. I wish I had stopped before my hair began to shed, or before my teeth became yellowed from throwing up so much. But I’m lucky that my suicide attempt and eating disorder didn’t take away this beautiful life from me. I’m grateful everyday to be the woman that I am, full figured, and strong. I hope you read this and realize that you aren’t alone, and that there is someone out there that cares about you. I hope you realize that your worth depends on everything but your body size, and that you have an entire life to look forward to.

  source https://helpingdisorders.com/my-eating-disorder-story/

Love

Even a broken heart is still a heart that can be loved. Even professional assassins still have hearts and mothers. Even broken people are still people.

Ruby took the last sip of tea left in the teacup and pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail that still looked flawless. But that’s Ruby all over; flawless. Even when the world is falling apart around her, she was still flawless. She still rose up above the flames and took it all in her stride. Maybe that’s why nobody ever questioned if she was okay, but in all honesty, she was okay, because she is always okay. “The only way to get through it is to get through it” is what she always says. But even the strongest people can be weak sometimes.

Standing up and brushing the crumbs from her un-ironed uniform, she walked over to the mirror. She looked at her reflection that should show a fractured shell of a broke girl, but it didn’t. She stopped and stared a little and wiped away last nights smudged eye liner and reapplied more, the way she always does, before stepping out her bright yellow front door into the dark, damp, dreariness that never seemed to phase her. She almost skipped down the road in her bright pink raincoat, smile beaming, to work. I’ve never really understood how somebody like Ruby can always seem so happy all the time. But I think that’s the reason I love her. Her confidence and charisma is infectious to everybody around her, even on a terrible day, I can’t help but be happy around her. 

I can’t remember when I first realised I loved her. Maybe it was the first day I worked with her, when everything seemed to go like clockwork, where nothing went wrong and everybody was happy just being around her. Or Maybe it was the first night I saw her stood at the bar; her long curled brunette hair tickling my arm as she was talking to the guy next to her; sparkling red dress hugging her perfect figure and lightly tanned skin. Maybe it was even the day my car broke down and I had to catch the bus with her in the rain. All I know is she has left an imprint on her heart and butterflies in my stomach that fly around every time I hear her name mentioned in conversation. 

Walking into work that day, I felt that things were different to normal though. I saw Ruby standing outside a bay of patients still in her raincoat , and I knew something wasn’t right. The cheery look on her face that always brightened my day had been replaced by an expression of absolute concentration. 

“What’s up Ruby?” I asked her confused, and also concerned.

“I’m not sure” she replied puzzled “Something isn’t right with this man, but I can’t work out what”. 

I looked at the clock. It was still ten minutes before we started our shift. 

“I’m sure he’s okay. Coffee?” 

She smiled back at me and nodded. I knew something wasn’t right that moment though. Ruby is a fantastic nurse and I will never understand how somebody so young, who has faced so many tragedies in her life, can be so loving, and intelligent, and caring. But even fantastic nurses can’t save everybody, and Ruby was realistic enough to know that, and after a shift that would break anybody else, she still came out smiling.

The next few hours were just a blur of emergency buzzers, doctors, scans, bloods, and medical jargon being thrown everywhere, but none of it ever phased Ruby. She was right about the man who ‘wasn’t quite right’ who had multiple seizures, but she did everything she was asked to save that man, and thanks to Ruby, he did survive. But even then, something still wasn’t right. The concentrating expression that had bothered me earlier was still stuck, clinging to her face. 

“Ruby? Are you okay? You just seem off today”

“I’m fine, I’ve just got a lot to think about”

“ You sure? Fancy getting a drink after work? We can talk about it if you want?”

Smiling through broken tears she replied “I’ll be okay, I’d rather not bore you with the intricate details of my tiny insignificant problems. It’s probably nothing anyway” she giggled it off. Wiping away the tears and getting back to her medication round, I knew it wasn’t something ‘tiny’ or ‘insignificant”. I’ve never seen Ruby cry before, ever. A fragment of my heart broke knowing that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I would have give my everything to make her happy.

I don’t really remember anything else about that day, but the feeling of hopelessness stayed with me for the following weeks. I don’t know what it was about it, but I felt uneasy every time I saw her, even though her happy, bubbly self was back. It’s like I knew the whole time that something seriously wrong had happened. 

“You alright?”. The words fell off my tongue effortlessly to her. Everything was effortless around her. 

“Hi! I’ve not seen you for ages!” she chirped back before reaching out for a hug. It felt so perfect and natural. Like strawberries and cream, like Micky and Minnie, like black and white. I felt something inside me so strong I couldn’t hold it back. I needed to tell her.

“Have you got a minute before the shift starts? I have something to tell you”

My heart pounding a million to one, I waited for her answer. Each millisecond felt like a light year. Locked onto her beautiful dark brown eyes, her cheeks twitched as she smiled. Just as I saw her about to reply, she reached into her pocket and took out her phone. Suddenly her smile disappeared and her face dropped. 

“ erm.. yeah.. just um.. give me a second.. I just need to er.. ring somebody. I’ll be back in a minute..” 

She scurried down the corridor like a little mouse running from a cat. What had she just seen? It panicked me to even think about it. My head racing, my heart pounding, my stomach flipping. What would I even say? Should I even tell her I love her? Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. Did I even love her? Or did I just think I loved her? No. Course I loved her, how could I not? She was perfect, flawless. I watched the clock tick by, every second lasting longer and longer. Trying to scramble together what I would say, she came back, her eyes slightly more smudged than normal, her face still smiling. 

“What did you want to tell me?”

To be continued.....

Just A Dumb Rant About My Life and Problems

There are so many things wrong with my life. I feel so stuck in the circumstances that I’m in. People have told me to simply get out of it/them but it’s not that simple. 

What don’t people fucking get about having an abdominal problem that makes you unable to eat for days and vomit constantly or being unable to sleep or drink water because of it? I quite literally am on a pain scale of 8-9 on a GOOD day. That’s not including having severe fibromyalgia and being in constant pain. I suffer from cluster migraines multiple times weekly which calls for many ER visits so they don’t become dangerous. Plus I have a cyst on my ovary which FUCKING SUCKS if you don’t know and to top off the copious amount of physical health problems I have that haven’t mentioned, I have developed kidney stones which adds to the not eating and vomiting and stomach pain. Yay, fun. Oh, and seizures, but that’s mental and we’ll get to that last.

Now, I just started taking Microeconomics. I need this to 1. Save my relationship with my father and little brother (which I will come back to) 2. Get my High School Diploma and 3. Get my Associate’s Degree. 1 and 2 are related and 3 is all for me. All of these should be for me but alas, no. My life was not meant for me to live. 

Here’s a little background: My dad wasn’t the best or even the okayest dad growing up. In fact, I resented him so much. He abused me, my younger brother, and my mom. I stole money from him as a revenge. Even though I admitted it and have tried to repay some of it, my parents got divorced a year after I was supposed to graduate, and the year my brother went into High School. He took my brother one day and just left.(2010-11) He left me with my mom. (She had a fall at work and had multiple surgeries in her shoulders and knees rendering her disabled.) I don’t even remember if he told me he loved me. I just remember him taking my brother and crying as he walked out the front door to the house we lost shortly after. I lost my family, and it was all my fault. My mom ended up becoming more depressed than she already was. She lost her son. I lost half of my family. Fast forward 5 years (2015) and he finally lets me back in his life but it’s conditional and my brother now thinks exactly like my dad. It’s terrifying. I hate myself to this day because it’s my fault they divorced, my fault my family fell apart, my fault that I couldn’t stop this, my fault that I failed my family. Anyways, back to the always-fun microeconomics and why I told you this dumb story.

I took AP Economics in High School. I’m not a bad student. I’m actually quite smart and end up helping people. However, in High School, I had a shit teacher, who ONLY spoke about current events, NEVER had tests, NEVER had homework. I missed a week of school towards the end of my SENIOR YEAR due to being hospitalized for a bad cluster migraine. I came back and she told me that I missed not one, not two, but THIRTY FUCKING TWO ASSIGNMENTS and NO I was not allowed to have them. I then went to the Dean, again she refused to give the (non-existent) assignments, then called in my parents, at which point she said she would but never did and failed me at the end which caused me to never officially graduate High School. Now I’m taking courses in college and passing with Honors and being on the Dean’s list with the exception of two semesters as I’ve taken this course twice (dropped the first time [online honors course] and dropped by the teacher the 2nd for missing a midterm due to having a seizure on campus and taken to an ER). 

MICROECONOMICS: The course I need to obtain my degree in Automotive and also my High School Diploma (NOT MY G.E.D.). It’s also the course I need to keep my Dad and brother in my life for good or lose them forever. He gave me an ultimatum. I have to pass this course or he is done with me. He will never speak to me again. Which mean my brother won’t, my Uncle won’t (whom I love very much and he already doesn’t talk to me and it breaks my heart), and the rest of my dad’s side of the family won’t. I will genuinely lose half of my family if I fail this 5-week course. I am so scared of losing them even if it’s a shitty relationship and I don’t see them often, maybe once every couple months despite them being a few blocks from me. My heart hurts.. I immediately start shaking as soon as I enter the classroom. I honestly don’t understand Econ and it’s my HS teachers’ fault. She never taught so I don’t get it. I’ve tried so hard with no avail. 

My mental health has been just fucked the hell up lately. I was diagnosed with severe/chronic depression when I was ten. Then I was diagnosed with anxiety when I was 12 (later turned into severe/chronic anxiety when I was 13) and chronic bipolar when I was 14. I developed seizures from taking Tramadol and now I only get seizures when I have a panic attack. Now, I really don’t care if I get backlash for this part because if you are the type of person to say ANYTHING AT ALL NEGATIVE TO ME FOR TALKING ABOUT THIS, YOU CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF, but I was raped twice within a year near the neighborhood we moved to recently by different people. (Yes, I filed a report. Yes, I spoke to a police sketch artist. Yes, I went to the hospital and had a rape kit done. Yes, I followed up. No, neither were caught.) Now I have been diagnosed with PTSD. I have attempted suicide 4 times. Once landed me in a coma. I’ve been institutionalized multiple times. Every time helped a little bit. The most recent time helped the most but I fear I’m backtracking. 

I don’t have a lot of friends but I have a group of close ones. I smile and laugh a lot but majority of the time it’s fake. I used to show when I was going through something but not anymore. I used to talk to my friends about what’s going on, but not anymore. I’m afraid I’m bothering them. I feel so alone. So empty. I have a tendency as of late, to get very real and show how I’m feeling and immediately change the subject like what I just said didn’t happen. It confuses the other person to the point where they forget what I had said and they move on. I don’t really have any best friends. I have one person I may call my best friend but she isn’t. I know I’m kidding myself. I don’t have a best friend. She really used to be, but she moved away in middle school. We’ve kept in touch and when she comes out, she’s my best friend, but otherwise, we’re strangers. I’m the only one in my group who doesn’t have someone to confide in. I can’t trust anyone to keep what I tell them in confidence. I feel like I’m dying inside. I’m losing my will to live, to go on. I want to. I want my dreams to come true. I want someone to read this and tell me it will be okay but I know it won’t happen. Anyways, there was a reason I was talking about my mental health, physical health, microeconomics, and my family, so here goes.

The first day in Micro, I had a panic attack because I couldn’t comprehend the word problems. I started shaking and panicking. After a few minutes of trying to graph the supply and demand curves and failing, I start to silently cry. I had to step out because I started going numb. (I have an aura before my seizures and this felt like it). I sat down outside and cried while trying to catch my breath. A woman stopped, asked if I was okay and I told her I was just having a hard time in Economics, that I was just trying to get my bindings, and she gave me a pep talk and hug. I went back in and at the end of class, spoke to the Professor and he said he’d help me. Today, walking into class, I immediately got tingling in my face, shaking in my hands, hard time breathing, but it was a little easier. My dad hasn’t called. I should expect as much.

My health is preventing so much of my life from being lived. The pain prevents me from actually doing the things I love; from excelling at the things I’m good at. Both my physical and mental states are seemingly deteriorating despite how hard I’m trying. I keep telling myself You’re trying, you’re doing your best, it’s okay. But it’s not. I’m seeing doctors and surgeons, I’m going to school to get a good job to save up and move out on my own and have my own life. But I don’t have a job right now. I can’t get one because if I divert any attention from this economics course and not pass, I lose my family again and permanently and I can’t have that...I can’t lose anyone else. So in the meantime, I’ve focused on my health, which makes my dad upset because I don’t a job to him back. I don’t have a job to pay for anything. “I just have to get through the next 5 weeks,” I say to myself, “Maybe he’ll love you more if you get you High School Diploma, maybe you be a failure to him.” I literally do not have a drivers license because the courts temporarily revoked it due to my seizures. I CANNOT DRIVE. BY LAW.  My ENTIRE FUTURE is in Automotive. No dealership will take me like this. This is all I’ve been working for. I’ve been watching all year as everything I’ve been working for gets taken from me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

People keep telling to me to get out of my “situation” but my “situation” is complicated...and unfair...and lonely. I don’t have support keeping me going. I have anger, resentment, contempt, and fake smiles and laughter from all sides. I feel like everyone is here to point fingers and wants to tell me what to do but hasn’t been in my situation or a situation similar. I cannot get an income, I cannot work without risking people that I love, so now I get to watch my dreams go further and further into the distance until it disappears. maybe I should just disappear.

I’ve been crying as I type up this whole dumb post. This whole thing is dumb. I’m  dumb. I don’t have friends, and if I do, and I introduce them to literally anyone else, they hang out with them and I’m left out permanently. I have to lie to myself and tell myself that I have friends. Does anyone know how sad that is? To be surrounded by people you know and know that none of them are really your friends? That you can’t just hit them up and hang out and talk and confide in them and have movie nights and go on adventures together.

I don’t have friends. I keep asking myself what I can do to fix this.  What am I doing wrong? Am I too loud? Too quiet? Do I talk too much? Do I get excited too easily? Do I not talk enough? Am I boring? What’s wrong with me that people always leave me? I’m told I’m “too much” almost everyday by someone who says they love me. Am I “too much”?  How do I fix me so I’m acceptable for love? Do I just not deserve it? Am I that undeserving?

I guess so.