To The People Who Say I Talk About My Illnesses To Much

June 26, 2015 / Shannon DeRose / 2 Comments

On a couple different occasions people have told me I talk about my illnesses too much..

We need to go back, to a moment….

When was the first time you heard about autism? How did you learn about peanut allergies? What was the first time you knew what Crohn’s disease was? What about cancer?? ….. Who told you these things? And if you say you read it on the Internet..

Then someone had to talk about it for you to read it.. Someone had to write the words you wrote. Someone had to discuss what was going on inside their own body or someone close to them..

These things NEED to be talked about, how many life have been saved since people started talking about breast cancer? How many earlier screens have saved a life? How many people have known the symptoms of meningitis and knew when to go get help? How do you know to go to the doctor when you have the flu? Because you knew what to watch for…

Someone has to talk about these things for you to understand them…

People don’t know normally what is Gastroparesis is or what it’s like having 9 food allergies let alone 40 food allergies.. And the only way we can find a cure the only way we can get better is… By talking about it..

And on the other hand.. When I do everything throughout the day I must think.. Is this food safe? Did I touch something? Did I get up too fast? Am I having an allergic reaction? Is my headache my normal headache or something more?

My body is failing me, I can’t go throughout a day without thinking about it.. I am not talking about my illnesses because I’m bored or have nothing else going on but because no matter what I do no matter how I handle my life. My illnesses control part of it. I must think about it because if I don’t.. I could kill myself. If I touched a walnut if I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating, if I didn’t watch what I was doing. I could hurt even kill myself…

My illnesses don’t take breaks, my illnesses don’t take days off, my illnesses don’t get magically better with medicine.. My illnesses without meaning to have to control part of what I do because I am living in a body that is broken but no way to fix it…

So yes I talk about my illnesses a lot yes this is part of my life on a daily basis if I didn’t talk about it you wouldn’t know what it was or what I was going through. You wouldn’t understand how easily a peanut can kill me or corn, a tree nut, or even some food that I didn’t crew well… Something could kill me easily and by talking about it it could save me…

There is this part of me that wants you to know that the main reason I talk about it, is because if we don’t talk about it because if we say nothing then nothing will change.. We won’t get treatment… we won’t get a cure.. We won’t get better life because no one will be doing research about what’s going on inside our bodies.

We not only need awareness we need understanding… We need help, because we need people to understand give us as much awareness as possible because then maybe we could save another life from pain and from being without a diagnoses and without help… Because people with chronic illnesses, rare diseases can go years in horrid pain without a diagnosis without any help, and without understanding…

So thankfully we have people who talk about rare diseases, chronic illnesses because maybe one day when I say I have EoE people will have as much understanding as they do for when someone says they have cancer..

I didn’t choose to get a rare disease I just got a few… So if I don’t talk about my rare disease no one will know..

So yes my diseases are sometimes the highlight of my life but it’s because it affects my life in every way…

Thanks for reading about my talking about my illnesses, diseases can be invisible, which is why they are called invisible illnesses, we must first understand that awareness is the key..

If you want to talk about this more with me, leave a comment or email me, we can discuss the horridness of chronic and rare diseases,

Shayweasel out…

Chronic Illnesses Are Chronic..

June 7, 2015 / Shannon DeRose / 2 Comments

So yesterday I felt so bad that at moments I was worried more than normal about my health. I was having a bad day, but the day before that I had four allergy attacks that led to my eyes not wanting to be used. The day before that I slept for 15 hours straight.

I have Chronic illnesses, and for some people seem to not understand that chronic which means daily, hourly, momently. It doesn’t stop. Its like having anything when you get diagnosed with a chronic illness it’s like getting a tattoo, you really can never get rid of it. There are sometimes surgeries you can do to make it go away, but they are lots of money and sometimes you end up getting scarred, good thing about tattoos is you get to choose what the tattoo is and if you want it in the first place. A chronic Illness has no choose. It shows up on its own and it’s happy to be there.

CHRONIC.. Means daily, it does mean I get to have some good days, but most of my good days are thanks to the medicine I took or are due to the fact that the day before I slept for 18 hours or it’s a weird random thing that happens out of no where. Most of the time when people see me I’m having a good day, because on my bad days I don’t normally get out.

So even if i look good, if I act fine, I could be in horrid pain. Its not all in my imagination. I’ve heard that one a lot, that’s not it. I have problems, my diseases are slowly making me very ill and unable to do as much as I want, but I enjoy my life.

And if you see me enjoying my life it doesn’t mean I’m better. It doesn’t even mean I’m having a good health day, but I could just be having a good day. I am not healthy at all. But I’m happy.

You can be slowly dying doesn’t mean I have to see things as sad or bad. But instead I see them as good, but sometimes I feel like if I look happy to some they see it as I’m wonderful and healed but I’m not. I’m still ill. I still have a CHRONIC illness.

Even on good days. The Illnesses are still there. They don’t go away.

Chronic means that it’s not going to be cured anytime soon, that you’re going to be in pain. That you are going to be in and out of hospitals sometimes, it means that doctors offices and blood draws are another part of your life. It means that when you wake up you have to take time to get out of bed. It means taking a shower can make you pass out if you aren’t careful. It means food can make you sick or even kill you. It means that I’m chronically sick, I’m ill, on good days I’m still ill.

I feel like people don’t want to accept the fact that being ill is chronic and that I’m never going to get better without a cure and at this moment this cure isn’t real. It isn’t happening. So for the time being I’ll be living with chronic illnesses, so daily, I will be living with chronic illnesses…

This has been my randomness on Sunday…

Shayweaseling it…!!

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…

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)

Why weekends are hard…

April 12, 2015 / Shannon DeRose / 2 Comments

I hate ~~mondays~~ Fridays, I know what? Shay? How can you hate the weekend they are fantastic. One let me say I haven’t always hated them. And I still hate Thursdays more than I hate Fridays but for me I hate the idea of the weekend, that you have to go out and hang out with friends or if you don’t have plans then you are just going to die alone or become a cat lady.

I mean its not a big deal. I have been a nanny and my idea of a friday night was the parets going out and me making like 100 dollars thats my idea of Friday for a long time and when I wasn’t working I would sit in my living room watching TV shows or movies or I would be on tumblr for like nine hours.

So I don’t get where this you have to be busy on the weekend sleep in and go out and party or go to church on sunday. I don’t get it. I want to do what I do on a normal day. To me the weekend ends up normally being really boring and I don’t enjoy it because everyone is saying “Oh my I’m doing blah blah..” I mean even if I had a lot of friends who wanted to do stuff the weekend wouldn’t be when I wanted to hang out it would most likely be a random day.

But I want to say since my chronic illness kicked in over drive, the weekends end up being really hard on me. I feel like I am missing out on a part of live that I never knew I needed but I don’t need it. You might be someone in school or work the weekdays and when you get a free day its like fantasticness but to me it sometimes end up making me sad because I’m like I don’t have energy to do anything and its not going to change just because its the weekend sometimes I have good days but they are normally on a weird day like Tuesday and I get to make breakfast and go to the store, but my body doesn’t know that its the weekend. It does what it wants to.

So why am I telling you all this? Because I know that people with chronic illnesses might feel the same way, so if you know someone who has a chronic illness go over and watch a movie with them and don’t try and make them talk to much or anything just let them be but be there with them. It means a lot when you get a friend who can sit in the same room on their laptop as you and not talk but will say something like did you see this?

Or when we need to rant about shit you listen. Its hard because we might seem whiny but it really is that some of us aren’t around people. Don’t talk to people, and a lot of us don’t get to see very many people at all or only talk to people online.

The weekends are hard because its not just we can’t get out its that no one wants to stay in and no one wants to hang out with you.

When you are diagnosed with a chronic illness you normally lose half your friends right off the bat and it kills small parts of you. So yes, if you want to help make weekends better then just be there and say what’s on your mind.

My name is ShayWeasel and this has been a weirdish public blog post…

#spooniestrong #weekendssuck #fuckit