Finding My New Moon..

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015 / Shannon DeRose / Leave a comment

When I was 17 years old I went to California everyone I knew was shocked by what I was doing, I wasn’t one to step out of my comfort zone much, this was a big step. I at the time was living in North Carolina and California is a far way away. So I went and had a wonderfulish time. I met some great people and some not so great people but when I came back, it had been a year of living at home without any of my siblings all of them are older then me and had left for either college or jobs, it was sad and it was weird, but I think honestly I just missed them.

My sister Vana who told me she would pay me in Ice Cream to read twilight wasn’t joking, she brought me the book from the library when she came home one weekend and some ice cream.

right around this time I was starting to become ill, and we weren’t sure why. I was going through some test and things, and would take the Twilight book with me to each appointment, it was then that we found out that I was allergic to about nine foods, some being corn, wheat, soy and nuts. If you know anything about food you know that that cuts out over 75% of processed food. My life changed real fast.

But I sat and took this news, and went home and read Twilight more. My sister came home a few weeks later after I had finished the book she brought me the next book New Moon. This book was her favourite but she wouldn’t tell me why. We went the store and walked up and down the ice cream aisle looking for ice cream I could eat we didn’t find any that day but I told her I would read New Moon.

I love New Moon, it’s become this thing that I do when I get real sick or when I’m having a bad day, I pick up New Moon and I read. I read for hours. I think it’s become like a safety blanket to me. Its something that comforts me.

I think when I read New Moon, I basically had gotten my own new moon, I was set on a path not one i would have choose, I was set on a path of the sickness, my body was then starting to fail me. I had changed my life and it wasn’t by my choosing. I found my own new moon, in a sky full of stars and lots of darkness..

When I went through stuff as a 17 year old I read it and now I read it. Its why me and my sister Vana can write I need to read New Moon to each other and both of us understand that we aren’t doing fabulous.

I’ve learned a lot about food allergies since then and have found ways to have and make everything. But it’s just that when you find something that comforts you.. stick with it.

New Moon is like my safe place, Bella understands me. Vana understands me. My life is fading away when I read it, and for a moment I can forget about the pain…

I have found my own new moon, I have been on this weird way of living but its still good. I don’t look for happiness all the time, I look for the new moon, because its always there even when I don’t see it right away. I just have to look past the darkness in the sky and look past the stars and the planets to find a weird new moon just being in the sky. Life goes hard but remember it can always get better and worse, but the better can be made from the worse. You don’t have to look for the darkness it just shows up, but you can look for the light, that little new moon. That safe place. Don’t look for dark look for the moon. Its barely light but just enough….

Thanks for reading..
Shayweas out…

Write Your Story

May 19, 2015May 20, 2015 / Shannon DeRose / Leave a comment

I have this notebook my sister Stephie gave me, on it it reads “Write Your Story” my whole life I’ve heard this saying write your story, make your own life, live your own life, but I have noticed lately.. People they don’t live there life’s, they just live… They just go doing nothing, but they aren’t taking breaths with purpose and they aren’t writing their own stories they are letting their stories be written for them.

Its as if we live in a world where you can live with the way things are or we can change them or we can try to change them, we might take a long time we change them. But we are working throws it.

Its hard to write your own story, because that means you have to live with purpose and with love and you have to try so much harder than ever just to live, you have to be able to try you have to let yourself try and write it. It doesn’t mean you plan out every part of your life it means you live your life as it happens.

When you fall, you get up, you go on. You keep living you keep going on with your life. You don’t give up. You will get shot down on a weekly basis but you have to remember that you are amazing.

People will hate you but truly as long as you don’t hate you, you’ll be okay.. Life is amazing it demands to be lived. Life doesn’t happen when you sit on the side lines if you’re like me you don’t do well playing the field but you’ve found a way to be in the action without ever stepping a foot on the field. I don’t play the same games as the ones on the field but it doesn’t mean I’m not living.

I will be the author of my own story, I will live my life. I can’t live anyone else’s because my life is my own. I take breaths and I walk and I believe in tomorrow. I also believe in today.

Because tomorrow could always be worse than today, so believe in today.

I leave you with this.. When you live life as just with going through and not really trying are you then one writing your story? Or is someone else in control? Or are you letting the way other people feel about you… Have an impact on your writing of your story?

Write your story, no one could write it better then you…

The Trail Less Traveled is Full of Spiders

May 6, 2015May 6, 2015 / Shannon DeRose / Leave a comment

I woke up yesterday, and made up my mind that I was going on a walk. A good long one. I was going to do this.

I packed my backpack with my purse a camera and some water. And I left on my walk. I had a rebound headache from the migraine I had the day before, my back hurt from my kyphosis, my allergies started to attack as soon as I step outdoors, but I was going on this walk that was for sure, I walked through the park I had walked to.

There was this trail that lead off the main trail I was on and it made me think about how the trails that are less traveled are normally full of spiders and bugs and sometimes they have animals that will attack you. I took this path because it seemed cool but I soon turned around when I saw the huge spider in the middle of the trail. But in life I don’t get to turn around, I either have to walk through the spider web or I just have to stand there in front of it, because turning around in life is something you can’t do, you can’t retrace your steps, you can’t go back to how yesterday was.

But you can stand in front of the spider or you can figure out a way to go around it, or you can walk through the spider web even through its gonna be hard to get that web off you and you might even get a spider on you. Or you can do what I normally do, grab something and pull the spider web down. And then walk through it.

You know when you have any problem in life, if it be sickness, a death, a choice you have to make whatever when these things show up its almost like you can stand and stare at the spider or the problem or you can walk through it, you know its going to be bad but you can go through it.

Sometimes in life I feel like we go through almost blindly we don’t know we are walking on a path we sometimes get lost in the woods, but somehow we get back on the path after a while and sometimes its a different path then we were on before.

When I first became ill, I was lost in the woods for a year, I was sick and I was horrified, but I found this path about a year ago, and it was one I had never been on, So I took this path and I followed it mindlessly as the doctors and nurses told me they didn’t have all the answers, I then found some people along the way on the same path different parts, I found people like Aileen and Macy who had illnesses too, they let me rant about stuff and they had me laughing.

This path that us spoonies take is one thats very strange to most people in the world mainly because they’ve never seen it. But through all the trees and all the daisies and through all the spider webs we handle this trail is amazing.

The sun shines so bright when it hits that one spot, and you start to like all the trees and you start to find things that make you happy, When you’re sick you find happiness in simple things, you don’t need everything you just want little things. Like those five dollar cookies or that lipstick or makeup or that one mask you wanted that was five dollars more than you wanted to spend.

I have walked through black widow spider webs that then sent me into anaphylaxis I have walked in the rain but the trees they made the rain less… This trail or road less traveled is full of spiders and ants and bees but its full of really rare beautiful things that on the road that is more so traveled they have beat to the ground because so many people have walked on them. I’m not saying its better I’m saying its different.

I know life is hard for everyone in different ways, everyone struggles with different things but every once in a while when a spider is in my way and I fall to the ground horrified of the spider, thats when I miss out but when I grab a stick and tear down that spider web, I know I did something.

Its not easy but it never will be and I think part of me is becoming okay with that. I’m partly happy to be on this road thats been so hard to live…

Well… This has been Wesday the day where I rant about whatever it is that I please!!

Come back on Friday for Shay-De foodie Friday where I give you recipes for food and on Sunday which is total randomness…

Shayweaseling it!

I Won’t Fail My Failing Body

April 29, 2015April 29, 2015 / Shannon DeRose / Leave a comment

Today I ate lunch and then as my disease made up its mind that this food I had taken into my body was not going to stay, I went to the restroom and vomited, a few times. I tried not to make it a big deal or anything.

When I came out of the restroom, a lady stood there just looking at me and she said “Are you bulimic?” there are a few things about this question, one if the answer was yes that is not the way to ask a stranger in the restroom. But I answered “No I have a disease called gastroparesis my stomach is paralyzed and doesn’t work the way it should.” she then went “Oh well why do you have it?” I hadn’t ever had someone ask me this follow up question before. I answered “They don’t know the reason why. It might be genetics.” She followed up with this “Maybe you just haven’t taken care of yourself.” She then left the restroom and I stood there and looked into the mirror.

My collarbones have become so much more visible, its not by choice believe me. My legs are thin, my cute round face is less round theses days, even though I have a little left of my moon face from the meds a few weeks ago. I stood there and thought.

Its not fair to me, because I have a chronic illness that people feel the need to either tell me how to heal myself or tell me that I’m not taking care of myself. If I had cancer I would be brave, and cancer is hard to face, but I don’t understand why the fact that I “just” have a chronic illness that I should just deal with it. It doesn’t seem fair. I was born with illnesses and more illnesses have attacked my strong so strong body. I’ve been through more in my life health wise than most. I’ve had crazy days and I’ve been in a places where I had to make crazy hard choices.

My body is failing me. I didn’t fail it. I didn’t make myself sick. I just am sick. I’m okay with my illnesses hurting me but I’m not okay with people telling me Its my fault. I do not have cancer, no. I have an illness that is incurable. Its lifelong, Its painful. Its horrifying sometimes. I have things that are undiagnosed. I had a doctor straight up tell me that I’ll most likely be in some pain forever, and that he was sorry. I have had surgeries not many just two, I’ve had an air tumor in my nose.. What’s that? My doctors didn’t even know.

So no I didn’t fucking give myself theses illnesses Its not my fault. You can tell me off when I’m vomiting in the restroom, but only if you will hold my hair and then give my toilet paper so I can blow my nose and get all the vomit out it. I didn’t make myself vomit, my body is not working. My stomach has just stopped. My doctors are working to either find a med that works or a feeding tube might come into play or I might have to do some other stuff that I truly just don’t want to do. I want to go and live my life. I really want to go on that long bike ride.

I’m strong. I’m really strong, but you see me as an attention seeker in some weird public restroom, you didn’t ask my name, you didn’t tell me you were sorry this happened to me, no you blamed me. My body is not my fault. My mind is not my fault. The things that happen to me are not my fault. I only get to choose how I react to them. And man I’ve reacted damn well… I’ve done pretty good. I choose to wake up. I choose to keep going because I don’t see the choose to stop.

My body is failing me, but one thing’s for sure, I’m not failing my body.

This has been Wesday the day where I rant about whatever I please. And today I ranted… Don’t blame me for my illness, I will not fail my body.

Thanks for reading~ Shannon DeRose (Shayweasel)

Choose To Be Healthy

April 26, 2015 / Shannon DeRose / 2 Comments

I’ve had different illnesses since I was a child. My body has never loved me. But neither has my mind. I know things about life that most people don’t even know. Because they live a life where their minds, brains, bodies and health is just something they never think about. “healthy” to most is a choice, they can choose to eat healthy food, they can choose to go on a walk for their health. But for me “healthy” was just nothing, it was just not a choice, my health has never been good, never horribly I’m about to die, but its never been good. Its always been something that I’ve had to think about through.

My brain, its always failed me. No matter how hard I would try my brain was not what I wanted it to be, or what everyone else felt it should be. But a few years ago when my brain turned fully against me and basically tried to kill me, I knew my life was going to be different after that, I knew I’d have to accept the fact that my body, my brain, my life was not going to be easy and that everything I could possibly do was be alive.

So the strange question at hand is… What is healthy? What do I see for my future and how do I want to handle my health? My life? I want to be alive, thats the first thing. But I want to be awake and I want to be able to live happily and beautifully.

My body doesn’t seem to always enjoy doing things its suppose to do like eat food or make the necessary hormone my body needs to live. So I could choose to be upset or happy but I could and have choose to just have emotions and live as I please.

Today I was riding in the car with my sister and a few of her friends, her friend said jokingly as he smoked his cigarette that he was only going to live till he was 50, because of all the smoking and drinking and partying he is doing now. But I knew in my heart that those sometimes or people like him or my moms biological father they are the ones who live while people like me and so many others we might not live to be 50, I’m not saying I won’t live I’m just saying I might not because of my health and its not because I don’t have the choice to either eat healthy food or not smoke or go for a run, but I don’t get to choose my heath. I barely get to choose my treatment, but I get to live, I don’t know how long I will live, I mean I could live to be 100 years old, so many treatments are available and become available all the time.

What I’m trying to say is that if you can choose to be healthy, choose it. Because I don’t get that chance, and so many people like me don’t. And its not fair. So take care of yourself, love yourself, take care of your body, and health. Because you can lose it in a day. Or like me you can’t lose what you never had.

I’m happy I am, this blog post might not make sense, But I am Shannon DeRose this is my randomly rantingness. Thanks for reading.

Shayweasel

Continuous Stream of Consciousness

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