Coffee Talk

Some coffee talk this morning ☕️

It’s snowing…again. I fell asleep watching it snow last night. Everyone says that this is barely snow. I’m wondering if I’ll get so used to the snow that I won’t rush to the window each time it starts to fall just to watch the sky glitter.

-4° is very cold. 110° is very hot. Breathing feels a bit challenging at both ends of the spectrum, but I’ve found myself thinking more about my bedroom windows than about my lungs. Last night, I was watching the snow and feeling a deep sense of calm at the quiet bright. And just a few months ago, I was falling asleep to the gentle sounds of a summer breeze and bugs through the lifted glass. I am adamantly and vehemently opposed to window coverings because they separate me from the outside world, yet a mohair blanket is currently hanging over one of mine to keep my little nook of the world cozy. I demanded that a few inches of visibility be left across the top, and I snuggle a little closer to Cabbage.

Guys, I think what I’m experiencing now is still the tail end of fall here in the Falls. The lake is not yet so iced over that it can be driven across. In fact, you can still see open water in some places. But there are medians made from snow mountains in the street. And people have to identify themselves through their layers. And trucks have shovels on the front of them. And instead of bike lanes there are snowmobile lanes. And…

I love it.

Crash

A missed Neurology appointment.
Two missed Physical Therapy appointments.
Zero hours at Roverchase.
Not so much as a phone call or FaceTime with my friends or boyfriend.
No posts on my business page.
A week off from keeping Cabbage’s sister.
An entire week of missed classes and assignments.

See that’s the problem with restarting your life when the recovery process is still—well, in process. I have worked so hard to start building new relationships, to be an active member of society, to have passion projects, to make my own money, to keep working toward fininishing my education, to get stronger. I have started living a full life again.

But full lives come with expectations and due dates and accountability and grades and notifications on your phone that let you know exactly who and what you’re failing with each hour you’re asleep because another crash has come.

Another crash has come.

This past Monday morning was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was fine. Until the moment that I wasn’t, and I was sure that I was going to Jesus. Adrenal Crisis is not new to me. It was not the first time. If you’ve been with me a while, you know this. But I have been healing. I have been building muscle, eating, drinking water, taking every medicine and supplement exactly as directed by my team. So when my Cortisol bottomed out on Monday, I didn’t lose consciousness. I was fully aware of every symptom that attacked my body. I could feel it. And, friends, this whole week has been hell.

Physically, it has been brutal, yes. Adrenal Crisis comes with symptoms that destroy the body. Every system is affected.

But mentally and emotionally—I feel broken. I have watched every Canvas notification come in, telling me what I am already acutely aware of—I missed another class or another assignment is now past due. I know. I know. I fucking know. I have watched every missed call from my boyfriend that I just don’t have the energy to answer. I have seen the texts coming in from my grandmother that ask questions I can’t respond to because I’ll lose the composure I’m carefully keeping. I see the person on business page sharing other retailer’s lives with my group, and I just remove them without confronting her. Because my body has no cortisol, no adrenaline, no blood sugar, no blood pressure, no energy.

I am watching my life crash just like my body did. And it took one week. One week.

How long will it take me to put it all back together?

Change

Hey Beautiful,
Beautiful Face. Beautiful Smile. Beautiful Eyes. Beautiful Laugh. Beautiful Mind. Beautiful Soul. Beautiful Spirit. Beautiful Being.
Hey,

Things are changing again. We’ve welcomed another new year, and we’re…scared? overwhelmed? defeated? numb? hopeful? encouraged? excited? cautiously optimistic? It’s a new year that could bring the restart of a 12 month clock that nearly counted down to our breaking points. It’s a new year that could change everything.

Things are changing again, and we’re a couple weeks into a new season. A season that brings a special flavor of depression for most people I know. I’m so sorry, loves. I feel it. I drag my feet through it. I would shake my fists and stomp my feet at that dark cloud—if I had the energy. I know you would too. But you KNOW that this season will change too. It always does. The cold air will get warmer. The short days will get longer. And we all will have made it through. Together.

Things are changing again, sweet friends. If you’ve spent the past months campaigning with all of the passion you have, you’re looking to redirect. Because in just two short weeks this country will change. Audio recordings and obstinance aside—things are changing again.

This is the time of year when we look into ourselves to change too. What do we want to do different in our lives? What do we want to improve? How do we want to change our day to day routines, our bodies, our homes? As everything around us is changing, why not change ourselves?

I’m at such peace, y’all. I know that I have battles to fight. But I know that the seasonal depression will fade with the winter. The doctors will advise, and I will listen. My body will do what it’s going to do. I will go to church every single service that I can and read my Bible every moment that God inspired me to. I will take notes and study the Word. I will share what Jesus whispers in my ear. I will WORSHIP at the top of my lungs and dance until I fall. I’m going to drink my coffee and read my books. I’m going to sell LuLaRoe and help with Service Dogs. I’m going to continue working towards my degree. Those are things I’m going to do. But they are not resolutions. They are who I am. WHO I AM. And I am so at peace with who I am today.

Are you?

💜💜💜

Next

I turned in my last final last night. Finishing finals means finishing my first semester back in school post Adrenal Failure. My first semester back since I took Medical Leave in the middle of the Fall 2019 semester. My first semester back since leaving D.C. to come home. And I did it virtually during a global pandemic.

That’s a HUGE thing to celebrate, and I am crazy proud of myself—of this achievement, this milestone, this victory.

But the battle with my body is ongoing. I made a deal with Dr. V, my treating Endocrinologist, that I would drop my Hydrocortisone dose as soon I finished my exams. The key to getting my Adrenal function back is to wean off of the steroids completely. This is a process that I have been working on for over a year now. The last time I attempted a drop in dosage, I ended up back in crisis. Those are the pictures you see here. It was mid-August, and my body did a total shutdown. We had to abandon that dose drop almost as soon as it started. I’ve been back up at the dose my body was happy with ever since. It got me through the semester of school, starting the LuLaRoe business, and all of the other joy you’ve seen lately.

But I know that I have to try again. And the time has come. So tomorrow we drop. And we hope for the best. We hope that I’m stronger now. We hope that I’m more stable. We hope that my Hippocampus wants to do its job and that my Adrenal Glands feel like making Cortisol. And if not—we know that there’s a plan in place and that ultimately, God has me.

Vibrant

Last night I walked into my parents’ bedroom to get my dog for night night because sometimes he’s a traitor and wants to cuddle with his Mini. Whatever. Who can really blame him, right?

But. I was standing at the foot of their bed, and my mom goes, “You look, right now in this moment, the best you have looked in YEARS.”

I have not showered in a few days. I’ve been having stress rrhea like crazy all week. There’s a 15 page policy paper that really needs my attention. As a government major, the next few months are going to be nutso, and honestly–should I still be government major??? Will that still be a thing come Inauguration Day??? I am a VERY new business owner, still learning the ropes and begging people to come be my customer. I 100% dislocated my hip on the couch less than a week ago.

Ya know what, though? I spent four hours last night worshipping Jesus at the TOP of my lungs, occasionally dancing out of my room to refill my cup or take my own dog outside when he had to potty. I had a three hour business meeting with my LuLaRoe Sponsor this week. I participated in my first Live Sale at 8:45PM totally spontaneously–after walking up stairs! I’ve stayed caught up in ALL my classes. And my mom says my color is good.

The report on my color a year ago? Grey. I was grey. I am not grey anymore. I am vibrant. I am FULL of life.

So thank you, Mama. Right now, this moment, in these gross jammies, with my greasy hair, and my GIANT FREAKING SMILE, is the best I have FELT in years.

One Year Later

I woke up today.

Read that again. Celebrate with me. I woke up today.

I woke up today because one year ago, I admitted that it was time to accept help and move home to start the process towards recovery. Still in Adrenal Crisis, but no longer in Adrenal Failure, I left DC and allowed my parents to do what they have always done best: love me and care for me.

That first week at home, my Da was around to help keep me alive so that my parents could go to work. I don’t remember anything about him being here other than that every time I woke up, he was trying to force food down my throat. It made me angry. I am so incredibly grateful for it now. I also remember that at some point in that first week, my life line arrived. My Cabbage moved in and he has not left my side since. The only other memory I have of the first few days back is sleeping on the couch in my parent’s bedroom like I was a little kid because I couldn’t be left alone for any period of time.

So much has changed. I have come so far.

Today is Halloween one year later, and I feel good.

I am winding down my first semester back in school. I spend time at Roverchase, sometimes volunteering for the Roverchase Foundation. And I am officially announcing that this week I started my own business!

I am thrilled to be telling you about Well-Being Wardrobe, a small business where I am all about empowering women to be well through stylish comfort. We will feature the LuLaRoe clothing line and handmade happies. Go ahead and like my business on Facebook, and follow @wellbeingwardrobe on Instagram and Well-Being Wardrobe on Pinterest. Be looking for it to go live in the next few weeks! I am so excited about this new adventure in my life. Let’s be well, together 🙂

What A Year Can Mean

10/20

October 20

20 October

I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m good. And the thing is–I really am. I was admitted to the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at UAB Hospital at 8 o’clock this morning. I have 29 wires glued to my scalp where a nice young man scraped the top layer of skin off to accommodate them. There are two more attached to my chest along with five that belong to what I think is a heart monitor–though a nurse came in to do an EKG a few minutes ago, so maybe not? Earlier today, three nurses were putting in my IV for emergency access and blood draws. They had to stick me six times, blowing four veins in the process. So far, I have done the flashing lights and hyperventilation. One of them triggered something because we got an event–yay! Sleep deprivation is on the agenda for tonight. But I really am okay. 

I’m smiling and laughing. I’m joking with the people who are in and out of my room. I might be flirting with my cute night nurse a little 😉 I’m not mad that my mom went home to sleep in her own bed for the night. Maybe I have epilepsy. Maybe I don’t. Either way–I’m good.

But a year ago? I definitely was not.

One year ago today I was also being admitted to the hospital–crazy, I know. I was 800 miles away at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, DC. I was in Adrenal Failure, and I was going to die. 

You’ve read about the night I gave up on my bathroom floor and admitted I needed help. You know I called home and that my parents told me it was okay to take a break and get better. I told you how a week later I was in the hospital fighting for my life. This is it. This is what happened.

After that night, I wrote a Patient Portal message to my treating Endocrinologist asking for guidance, and when I didn’t hear back from her after a few days, my mom called her in a panic. It was Monday, October 20, 2019 when that lovely doctor called her back and yelled at her that I needed to go to the Emergency Room immediately based on the symptoms we had reported. Turns out, she had left me a voicemail too–oops. So Makayla packed me into an Uber, and we headed to Georgetown’s ER, where we sat–for nine hours. 

I’m really really tough, guys. I power through a lot. I wear many masks. I put on quite the show. Apparently, all of these things were good enough to fool the ER staff. However, blood doesn’t lie because as soon as they started running tests when they finally got me back everyone went into full panic mode. Doctors and nurses started apologizing profusely for how long I sat and waited–seriously, there was actual groveling. I was rushed into the FIRST room that became available–on the post-op floor??? I got ALL the good drugs. A nice human sat on the edge of my bed and did that terrifying thing you see on TV where they put their hand on your leg and say, “We’re doing everything we can.” 

But they did. They did everything they could. And I didn’t die. 

I slept. A lot. I didn’t really eat. I don’t remember much. I know that I’m still on the drugs they put me on during that hospital stay to this day. I know that they only agreed to release me when they did if I promised to stay on bedrest. I know that they told me I couldn’t stay at school.

So I went home.

And that was a year ago. Exactly one year ago. And here I am–thriving. 

I know that sometimes it may not seem like that with all of the doctor’s visits and the occasional hospital stay. It’s definitely a little unsettling that I’m back in one of these beds on the one year anniversary of that terrifying event in my life. It’s easy to lose sight of how good things are sometimes because of the chaos that is my body.

But things are good. My Cortisol levels are not zero. I am weaning off of the steroids month by month. I have friends again. I go to Roverchase every week. I wash my own hair. I eat. I’m in Physical Therapy. I help take care of Cabbage. I’m back in school. I am one year out from what I knew was the end. And I’m strong. I’m so strong–diagnosis be damned.

Head Above Water

So one year ago last night, I got to see Avril Lavigne live at her Head Above Water tour. I’ve been a die hard fan since I was a CHILD–like 5th grade, y’all. I used to have entire set lists memorized from her shows in 2002, so I was twelve and rocking out to music that was popular when I was two.

Before I got sick. Before she got sick.

I remember the day Head Above Water dropped–her first single in years. I sat in school with my headphones in and sobbed. I couldn’t stop myself from feeling every word. I couldn’t pretend that the song she was singing wasn’t my song too. I felt like I was seen. I felt like I was heard. And it was by Avril. My ride or die since I had a music taste that was all my own.

When Makayla Jo and I saw that she was going to be performing in our area, my chest tightened at even the possibility. And then we made it happen. We went. I saw her. I sang with her. I screamed. I danced.

And it was so so good.

Avril’s Head Above Water tour was designed to be easy on her ill body. The set list was short. It was perfect for her energy level and accommodating to mine. I was able to do all of those things with the people around me despite the fact that I was in the hospital fighting for my life less than two weeks later.

And that’s what you don’t see here. I don’t have pictures of the recovery process that came after this night that made a dream of mine come true. You don’t see that Makayla basically carried me back to the car. Or that when we got back to my dorm room she had to help me into bed and wrap heat and ice around my body and feed me a fist full of pills. You don’t see that I couldn’t get out of bed the next day.

But, guys, I didn’t care. It was so worth it. And some things are. Avril Lavigne singing my long time anthems and about how we’re too young to fall asleep. That. That was worth it.

Because she’s right. My life is what I’m fighting for. And experiences like that. No matter how hard it was. That’s what actually living is.

Life Behind Lids

The world is black and white, shades occasional but there and not here

My eyes they see in color, closed but not asleep

Opening them up, the world goes back to blank, words reflect no color, reds they show no hue

A person whispers words that mean nothing with eyes wide open

Your lids flutter closed and the mumbled thoughts become clear, you nod along understanding

You lay there in the dark, remembering your day, realizing things you never saw before

Seeing the things hidden behind the bland teacher’s musings

Find the hidden joke, insult or brokenness behind a friends interested trill

With eyes closed, blocking out the light, the brightness is blinding

Perhaps it’s a trait of the introverted type

Maybe everyone has discovered that the world is two-D, and it’s one of those things passed over but never discussed

Playing scenes of conversations long passed, clicking your tongue, I should have said that instead

The question asked in class, made a fool out of you, you knew the answer after all

I refuse to open my eyes, I hiss

My hidden world is too complex to leave, too bright and bold to clash with grey

Too pure to splash with fake laughs and comments directed to kill

Other people’s eyes give away too much, they don’t know how to have them open without hiding

I am convinced that I am clever

My eyes show nothing that I feel or of what they have seen in the dark

My talent is one envied by many, criticized by some, and not believed by those who know me so well

It is not a secret that the outside skies and trees and flowers and oceans reflect some of the beauty within us

That beauty is not reflected in the harsh words and squinted vision of those I pass in the day

You pass in the day

We pass in the day

You are

We are

The vision of parents is helpful to children, they are blocked off from the world we see, the passcode changing between generations, kicking them out to let us fill their still warm places

They are blind to our words, secret meanings behind a tone, glint of the eye that means so much

They think they are wise, that they have lived it once and know all our hidden expressions

The truth is though, that those of us that wear these hidden expressions know not what it is that they mean

I am colder wide awake, eyes open to the world

Warm in the comfort of my dark lightness

Dark lightness is what it is, a darkness that lifts the burden of searching from my shoulders, giving my conflicted memories a rest as I dissect each thing moment by moment without any struggle

As hard as it is

The lack of fun we often associate with our eyes open

Is worth it, you see

For we all see what is out there without always needing the comfort of our closed eyes to see how the day has gone by

Your eyes

My eyes

Our eyes

Their eyes

Open to see, but never understand, even in the quiet, closed off comfort of the life behind lids

I Dissent

Last night, I sat in my room and watched the live feed of people gathering on the steps of the Supreme Court. They lowered the flag and lit candles, clustered in groups with signs bearing their own words of mourning and her words of courage. I watched this happening on my little phone screen, and I wanted so badly to be with them there in the city I called home for a year and a half. I wanted to hear the hushed conversations that were taking place on the steps of the building that upholds and protects. I wanted to be part of the moment our country needed to take.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg said, “Dissents speak to a future age. It’s not simply to say, ‘My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.’ But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.” She dissented for us–for what she saw as tomorrow, the future, the next generation–my generation.

And now we dissent. We have watched key figures like RBG represent what and who we can be. We have seen our potential for change. We have witnessed tragedy after tragedy. But she also said, “So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune,” and I believe that my generation has the willingness to take all of the impediments and make them what we want them to be. 

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” RBG did that. And she showed us how to do it too. My generation is full of leaders who are ready to make lasting change and equally full of people willing to follow. We dissent, but more than that, we are beginning to find solutions. 

I believe that our country needs to make changes in healthcare to better meet the needs of those Americans living with chronic health conditions. I dissent, and I will fight for healthcare reform.

My best friend believes that we need to stop spreading the false narrative that renewable energy isn’t doable and will not make a difference. She dissents, and she will fight for renewable energy. 

There are young protestors in my city who believe that black lives are being oppressed. They dissent, and they will fight for black lives.

People believe that life begins at conception and abortion is wrong. They dissent, and they will fight for the unborn.

America is a place where we have the freedom to dissent. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was a beacon of light in this country, guiding my generation in what it means to uphold truth and show leadership. She represented courage and family and justice and the power of being a woman. She will be remembered.