change

I Won’t Fail My Failing Body

/ 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.

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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)

Open letter to the churches who support BCH

/ Shannon DeRose / Leave a comment

 

Dear Churches and People who support the Baptist Children’s Home of North Carolina. (BCH)

I’m angry. I’m very upset and as someone who has supported BCH I wanted you to know the truth. So here it is.

 

This business is run by, I don’t know how to put this so I’m going to put it like this, this place is like a bunch of anorexic models, they only care about what is on the outside and what looks good and they have no worry about how horribly they are hurting their bodies and the people around them. That is what the people who run BCH are like. This is who it is run by.

 

As you might not know to work for the Baptist Children’s Home of North Carolina, you do not need to be a Baptist, you don’t even need to go to church or believe in God. You don’t need to know a thing about the Lord to work here. And thats shocking. If this wasn’t mostly supported by churches then this wouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. It’s made a mission because of the people in the churches.

Your mission says its

“To provide the highest quality of Christian services to children, adults, and families in a caring culture of measurable excellence.”

But since you don’t have to be a Christian to work for you I’m not sure how you are holding out your mission. You can’t have it both ways. If The Baptist Children’s Home of North Carolina wants to take Baptist out of the name and just be a children’s home. I’d understand. But right now you have it in the name.

 

Most of the head people in charge of BCH are normally more worried about making the children dress and be pretty so they can showcase them and show them off and say look what we did? We changed them. Well truthfully this is the whole baptist children’s home, all of them are all about looking good having numbers saying we saved and we reached 5000 people this year and we are doing great. But if you dress children and women up and say look they are all good but if you don’t change someones heart you don’t do anything, so good job you reached 5000 people but you only changed the outside the inside is still hurting and the inside is still broken you might have reached them but you didn’t touch them. You didn’t heal them. Numbers say nothing. Numbers mean nothing.

 

You can get someone to look like a beautifully wonderful person on the outside but again its just like an anorexic. It’s not okay to what they are doing, if we are suppose to be the body of Christ, then this body of Christ thats at BCH is anorexic and in dying need of being feed by some Very Godly and people who are fully in wrapped in the Lord, and no money and nothing could shake them. Because the people who run this place have starved the baptist childrens home of the Lord.

People like Blackwell and Keith Henry don’t have a christ focused mindset. Really they just need new blood to come in and take over. Start at the top, and work your way down and see who the people who would lie down their lives for christ and keep those people. Because if you have people who are active in church and in their faith on a daily basis working for the kingdom of heaven. Then things might change.

You do have really good Godly minded people who work for the Baptist Children’s Home of North Carolina, but they are told things like – That if they want to cut down their hours they need to cut the bible studies and going to churches and don’t take the children to VBS. And that we aren’t paying you to do that. And thats hard on some of theses truly Godly minded people.

 

Now my own Father was fired from the Baptist Children’s Home, because he stood up and said that being alone with single women was ungodly and was putting him in a bad spot. Now they would say that he refused to do his job, but when they called him to say that he “quit” you’d never guess what he was doing. He was picking up a women from work. He was doing his job. If someone would have come forward and said that a women would be more suited for this job and roll in this part of the mission my father would have respectively stepped down but no they told him that he “quit”. This was not what my father’s job was even in the first place. They told him he “quit” and they are tarnishing his reputation.

 

So I write this because I’m upset and I’m ready for a change. And I need help changing it. I can’t do it alone. Help me stand up and change the Baptist Children’s Home of North Carolina. Because Godly minded people are out there and they need our help to stand up for whats right. We can make the Baptist Children’s Home better, but we need new blood and we need Godly minded loving people who put the Lord first, people second and money last. We need some Godly people to raise up and make a change.

Stand up, its time for a change.

 

I am Shannon DeRose.