It’s been Confusingly Complicated

It’s been a long time since I wrote. I find it hard to explain what’s been going on. It’s confusing weird and totally unnecessarily complicated. So since I don’t know how to explain things I just don’t say anything. I don’t write as much I don’t text as much or post as much.

Sooo here I am trying my best to explain things.

Last year my main doctor over my care was unexpectedly moved.

Since then I have not really found a doctor to take over. So it’s been hard. That doctor advocated for me. Explain things stood up and got the things I needed done.

Now he did above and beyond what he was supposed to do. And I do not expect in the slightest for another doctor to do that.

In January my psoriasis started getting worse and ended up caausing some issues around my Hickman central line (basically long term iv) and getting it replaced was what we knew I’d need in the long run but the doctors didn’t want to mess with me. Not having the doctor to tell the other doctors how important this was. Made it hard.

And as the line got worse and worse. The Place I had gone it get my care for my line for years got overwhelmed and confused by all that was happening because I hadn’t found someone to be able to make the doctors talk to each other on what to do! Which isn’t truly the fault of anyone there just how the medical community works sadly.

In April after waiting months I had surgery to replace my Hickman during surgery they couldn’t seem to be able to put the line in easily at all. Due to having vascular EDS my veins are slow collapsing into them self and/or splitting into smaller veins that basically lead no where. And because of this things like central lines have issues getting through.

The surgery put a Hickman( the longer team iv thing) in but couldn’t get it where t was suppose to be not deep enough in the vein. And it was extremely painful.

After a few months till they could get me into a different surgeon once I got in they decided to do another surgery and remove the old line and place another.

Well that surgery was suppose to be 30-45 minutes and it ended up taking over 2 hours. I was able to go home after what seemed like a short time in post op recovery.

The Hickman hurt weirdly so when I got out of surgery. But after using it at home it hurt. Badly. My breathing then started feeling like I couldn’t catch my breath. It was then my papa was like we got to go to the hospital. And when I agreed my parents knew something was wrong! Hahah

So at the er they were busy the doctor ordered an X-ray. And the X-ray tech using the portable X-ray took a few X-rays of my chest side and back. She seemed worried and that was worrisome.

But when a man comes in and says the dr ordered a ct made both of us kinda worried. After the CT scan within five minutes of being back in the waiting room someone came to get me.

The doctor would then come in and tell us that my Hickman wasn’t in a vein. It had somehow wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I was admitted.

We all decided to try and put a picc line for the time being. They had a hard time putting it in my veins are very thin and they move around a lot. There isn’t much or any connective tissue holding them in place.

After they put the picc line I went back upstairs at the hospital my picc line stopped working. It turned back in on its self.

I had to get it replaced the next day. And was able to be discharged which was a blessing!

But less then two weeks later my picc line stopped working. My doctor told me to go to the duke ER and so we drove the 3 hours there and then we got to the er at 2ish on a Monday and we left the ER at like noon on Thursday. I was in the ER the whole time. In a room with a curtain and in a busy area…

Horrifyingly this wasn’t my worst time in the ER

But during those 4ish days I had 3 picc line fails two tries in one arm and one in the other meaning they couldn’t get them in. Two Hickman line in my chest that they couldn’t get in. And then the last ditch effort came in…

A Hickman placed in the very top of my leg. It’s a very interesting place to have one. It is weirdly in the way more than I would have thought.

Like simple things.. dogs or children sitting in your lap making sure they don’t pull or mess with the central line on my leg.

Leaning against the counter to get something or to rest and your line is right at that level. Wearing shorts tbhe line with dangle and that makes it hard not get it caught on something.

When I need to give myself medication in to my line I’ll either have to pull my pants up if I’m wearing shorts or lose clothing or down. Unhelpful and weird in some situations.

But it works. It’s what I need to survive. We don’t know what’s gonna happen just yet but we do know that my body won’t stop getting worse but we will become better at handle it.

The psoriasis is dangerous and confusing. And the eczema is itchy and painful. so what’s the plan from here on out?! Confusingly it’s trying a different medication to see how that works.

It’s confusing because they still don’t know what cause it to get so bad. And we don’t know either but I started a new medication which is an injection every other week. We will see how this goes!!.

Having a chronic disease makes you have to learn to accept the reality of the disease. I know my body will get worse as my disease progresses and it’s up to me to handle this with joyfulness and kindness.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen and I feel like this is confusingly complicated and have no clue what we will do next or what is gonna work. But I leave it in the Lords hands

Sooo here we go…

Shayweasel is confusingly complicated

But thankful!

Nala is adorably wonderful!

It gets worse but you handle it better.

Life is weird and I’m ok with that. I think so anyway….

I have a habit of not wanting to say things are bad. It’s a good habit to have but not always a helpful one.

It’s not like I deny that things are happening it’s that I don’t want to bother people with things.

I think sometimes I’m doing great! I’m stable and then my body decides that it doesn’t like that and I trip and fall and leave a bruise for two weeks that’s concerning and then I remember that my body is getting worse.

My papa and myself at the beach

My disease is progressive and it will always be getting worse one way or another I will become worse.

and that this is hard to handle. I think back to almost ten years ago right before my nose surgery to clean my Sinus and remove a bone that wasn’t suppose to be there. I think about how confused and unsure of how or why my body was so weird.

But how after the surgery I knew things were never gonna get better. I know my body was gonna kill me.

As the years have gone on I’ve slowly seen the progression of my diseases become worse. Small things like eye sight getting worse or Small things like not being able to orally eat much. It seems to lose at least one or two foods every now and then to come down to only really being able to eat bites.

Somethings have gotten easy but also harder. I use to need my wheelchair every time we went out. For a few reasons ones mainly because I use the wheelchair for one of the big reasons because I had so many seizures that I was falling every time I had one causing more problems than ever like once being on the pavement in a Target parking lot and your parents not being able to get you up and into the car and having to have a stranger who just asked if we needed help! help your dad get you in the car.

The seizures have lessened because of my VNS which is my Vagus nerve stimulator. Which is a small device that is wrapped around my vagus nerve in my neck/chest on goes to my heart then other goes to my brain.

The device is like a pace marker for your brain. It goes off on this small pulse every 90 seconds. It has a pulse that goes off that’s higher whenever I put my magnet on my VNS.

Now the highest plus goes off whenever it feels a seizure of some kind happen inside my brain/heart and that one goes off for a normal person (well normal person who has seizures and happens to have a VNS) is around 20 to 40 times and that’s a bad number to them.

Mine goes off over 200 times every day. So without the VNS I’d most likely be having over 200 seizures a day. So yes my VNS is something I love and am beyond grateful for!

I know that the seizures, the diseases that have been slowly killing me. will never go away. And that they will get worse.

But I don’t have to use the wheelchair as much now. I can walk more. But I don’t go out as often. Partly because when I do it’s an event and I can’t do much the next few days…

I don’t have to use my epipen as much as I use to but I don’t do as much as I use to. And I’m able to get my IV Benadryl like I should be there are times when we have trouble getting it but it happens less often then if use to. But I don’t eat as many foods or eat food orally as much. At All.

All my nutrients come from my feeding tube.

My body has issues with getting sugar from my feeding tube. I got to hear the best thing I’ve ever heard a doctor say “your gonna need to try and eat more sugar and salt orally as much as you can!”

I was like I will make that sacrifice! So hard to do. But ok doctor I will eat ice cream every day!

Do I miss eating normal foods orally? Yes. Of course I do. But now it doesn’t seem like a big deal to not eat them.

It has just became something normal. I can go to a restaurant sit and not eat and I don’t even give a second thought about it!

I don’t think I’m better then I was. I’m just learned to be better at handling it.

I get hurt more often then I use to. By that I mean I fall more my hands do this thing which is considered a seizure which I didn’t know for a good while but my hands do this thing of dropping something my hand will just stay in the same position a few seconds afterwards. Now the most annoying thing my hands do is randomly throwing something. That one gets my last nerve like hand what are you doing?!!???

My joints go out of place a lot making me randomly fall. This past summer I got burned by an iron twice while doing crafts. The first one was a first degree burn the second was a second degree burn funnily enough.

I am constantly covered in bruises and things. I had to have two teeth surgically removed in September. because of how deeply my tooth was in the jaw bone

The top tooth on the opposite side of my mouth was a wisdom tooth and I broke it during a seizure an over a year ago. They had to cut into mg sinus cavity to get it out of my cheek bone I don’t understand how mh body even works

I’m saying all this to say it’s the weird things that happen randomly that’s what makes it hard.

It has gotten easier to remember to take my meds, to carry my backpack doesn’t seem hard now. It’s been basically a part of me

Don’t mind being home watching tv, baking, doing crafts, like making bows or crocheting.

My adorable dog Nala

I can do everything I’m supposed to. Everything the doctors tell me to do. And I know that I will get worse. My diseases will progress no matter what I do.

I will lose friends to diseases. Having friends who understand your health is always helpful but turns hurtful because you know they have the same or similar outcome as you do.

But as the years go on that progression doesn’t seem as scary. Doesn’t feel as hard to handle. The thing you learn is it’s ok to be ok with getting worse. It’s a good thing to learn your limits. Your life is hard but you don’t have to be fearful.

Getting my feeding tube changed out which happens every 6-10 months doesn’t seem scary anymore it’s more like just going to have a conversation with the people in radiology.

Me with My beautiful sister Vana!

Getting Hickman drsssing changed every Friday at the Rabb clinic (infusion center here where I live) doesn’t seem like a big deal it’s basically me going to visit the nurses and front desk people. The guy who drives the little trolley type thing that picks people up in the parking lot to take them to the front of the hospital. I see and talk to them all.

It becomes less of a problem to be able to do these things. It becomes scarier but that fear you now know how to handle. You learn to be ok to calm yourself when everything is going wrong.

You learn to be ok.

On the beach with my fabulous sister Stephanie!

It gets worse but you handle it better.

Because believe it or not everything can be worse and you can still find a way to be like Pollyanna finding the fabulous in the worse is the best thing to do.

I trust God. I can handle this because I have the Lord and He makes me stronger.

Shayweasel is worse but handling it better

And that worse is some of the most amazing things have happened out of it. It’s the best kind of worse I could ever ask for and I’m blessed to have it.

Glasses on

I don’t have a lot of photos of myself so here is one with me and Rory

In movies and In books and Even in life I have seen countless times where the main dorky or weird person gets a makeover and the one thing they seem to do thw most is take off their glasses wearing contacts like somehow that makes them prettier.

And everyone is so amazed by this beautiful person they suddenly see with a new outfit and glasses free and pretty shoes!

They act like this person is so much more pretty then ever before. And then someone says it’s normally the main popular guy or girl or their old friends are like I liked you better before or wow I never knew how pretty you were.

The person then realizes suddenly how beautiful they were all along! They normally don’t go back to their old clothes or put their glasses back on sometimes they do but it’s like they realize suddenly how to be beautiful.

I never understood why you’d want to take your glasss off to look more beautiful. Like I know They might have contacts in or whatever. But why does that make them look prettier.

I think I look less sick with my glasses on then I do with them off. But more importantly the world looks so much more gorgeous to me with them on.

Because when I take my glasses off apparently the world thinks I’m more gorgeous. But the issue is with my glasses off life is a blur I run into things can’t see what’s ahead of me clearly. I have to look closers to see anything.

So while the would sees me more beautifully without them off, I see the world more beautifully with my glasses on.

I think we always do that. I think as humans we see the world is prettier without thinking that the world sees us beautiful or not.

Because when you don’t let what the world wants us to do or be or anything things are easier to see we can see inside ourselves easier when we can see everything outside ourselves clearer.

But when we only care what the world things we can’t see things clearly. We are all blind to the world sometimes when we try to do what everyone wants us to.

So I might not be beautiful in the worlds eyes with my glasses off…

The world is so much more beautiful in my eyes with my glasses on!

Shayweasel is keeping her glasses on…

How To Handle Having A Caregiver

Here’s the thing when I typed “how to handle having a caregiver” into google I thought that it was gonna say things like letting someone helping you doesn’t mean your not an adult or they aren’t babysitting you and that this is needed those kinds of things but no this is what I found…

The articles none of them were pointed at the person who was sick, I find it so hard to have a caregiver to let someone help me.

I’m an adult and have to have someone come here and watch me?

As of 2018 I’ve become someone who has a caretaker, and a respite care worker. Two people that watch me most of the time. I don’t always know how to handle being cared for.

From the time your born you learn how to be independent. We learn to make sure to cry when we need something, we learn that being nice and smiling can help. That we learn to crawl to get something our selfs. We learn to walk so we can do things on our own.

We go to school so we can learn we do chores so we can be able to clean our homes when we are adults.

We learn to go use the to shower how to cook how to drive so we can do things all by ourselves.

As I get the blessing of living longer and longer I’ve been needing more and more help.

My respit caregiver is kind, and she helps me by really truly is here by just being here. With the diseases I have, it can change fast. I could hurt myself if I had a seizure if I had a a reaction. And so on so on.

I am learning to find this as a way for me to help someone have a job, to know this is ok

I’m learning to look at independence differently. To know I’m still an adult. I still need help but it doesn’t mean I’m lazy.

So how to have a caregiver- be kind, tell them if you need something even if you could possibly do it yourself but you know you shouldn’t, tell them thank you and be kind to them, if they make you feel uncomfortable say something to either them or the other people in your life. Think about them like the nurse on Monk solving crimes and someone walks around and helps him he’s still an adult. (We all know Natalie on Monk was way better then the first)

It’s not lazy. It’s not crazy.

Be kind be good be love

Shayweasel is sitting down

Not Failing.. Anyone

 I haven’t been failing my body but I feel like I haven’t been giving it everything I got after I woke up from the coma i felt like my body betrayed me because well it did. It totally turned against me and was like FU Shay who cares what you want. And I just felt like I wanted to turn against my body and not help it with everything it wanted. But this past few weeks I am having to learn to live this different life and get back into the normal habits of living a day to day life and I think I am just jealous of my old body which was horridly not working but it was controllable my body right now is in this like wild weirdo phase and is like I want to have a seizure for no reason and yay anaphylaxis is fun.

FullSizeRender_1

  So my body is failing me like I have said so many times before but that feeling of a failing body is not one I like I get annoyed that it’s not doing everything i need and want it to do. i want to be able to breath and walk alone. I want to be able to eat food and drink things. I want to be able to not worry about having seizures or passing out but i have to worry about that and I do not get a break but that’s okay and I’m working hard to learn that.

FullSizeRender_2

   I am trying to learn that it is okay to live inside a failing body till the end of my body but I am living with my body and we need to work together to be alive but right now I just feel like it wants to do whatever it wants to do. And that’s been hard for me to accept.

   So this morning I made up my mind that this is my failing body no one else can live inside my failing body. I have a chance to show myself that I am strong enough to live inside my body even when I don’t feel like it.  

FullSizeRender_4

   I got my spoonie friends, I got my fight song T-Shirt and I gotta show myself that I am willingly to fight like hell to survive and to do well in this world just because my body and mind and world can fail me at times I do not need to fail myself.

  Stephanie hasn’t failed me once and Nick hasn’t failed me once, my family isn’t failing me my friends aren’t failing me so therefore I have to fight and I have to not fail them and I think I have been failing them lately. By failing myself.

  I think when you fail yourself you fail the people around you. And Stephanie and Nick they have been here for me and with me and they haven’t done anything for me to fail them so I need to stand strong because this is just my failing body so I need to work hard to not fail it.

  I am not by any means saying this is gonna be easy to live with my failing body but I’m saying that I am gonna fight and I am going to live….

FullSizeRender_4

  That is all that is really asked of me is to live, live inside a failing body that has overcome so much already, but it’s not about what I do it’s about how I do it.

  I am strong, I am brave but most of all I am a fighter and I am a fighter because of the amazing people who helped me be a fighter. I am a fighter because of Stephie, Nick, my papa, Vana, My mom, Sammiy, Sean, Aunt Helen, Macy, Dara, Rachel, Matt, Josh, My friends, My family they make me stronger. 

FullSizeRender_3

  I guess what I am trying to say is that I won’t fail my body because I have too many people who helped my body live this long so if I fail myself and my body then I fail them….
Shayweaselish..

Dear Epipens and AuviQs

IMG_3187

Dear Epipens and AuviQs

 

Thank you for being a thing. Thanks for saving my life.

  AuviQ thanks for calmly talking me through these moments in life where my heart beats fast as my hand holds you and I take a deep breath and put you in my leg to save my life. As my throat was closing slowly it opens up and I’m able to breath.

  Thank you AuviQs and Epipens for being there when I’m going into a horrifying shock that is known as anaphylactic. Thanks for saving my life all the times you have.

  Thanks for opening my air ways so I can breath and even opening them that one time when I almost waited to long to use you. Thanks for opening them up and letting me live.

  Thank you AuviQ for being small so I can take a smaller bag, and be able to fit into my pocket and save my life when need be.

  Thanks Epipen for saving me on that Friday when my friend had to use it on me. Thanks.

AuviQ thanks for that time a few months ago where you saved my life twice in one night once on the chase in my living room and again in the ride to the hospital.

 Thanks to the people who make AuviQs and Epipens available and that make them small and make them so I am able to have them. Thank you so much AuviQ Thank you so much Epipen I won’t be alive without you.


Signed ShayWeasel… Thank you guys are a life saver.