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

What to know…

I want to know… But really is what to know, I need to stay on a need to know basics but sometimes is more of a what to know basics,

I know when I go to the hospital they are not on a need to know basics they are on a what to know… what happened.. what are you allergic to… what is wrong?… what kind of pain?? what to know is sometimes a weirdly important part. Its the small things that mess everything up. Its when you want to know something and then learn that you don’t really need to know it. But every now and every then, you learn what to know. And sometimes its when that person tells you what to know that you go… and take that deep breath and you know, that the air is clear and that the pain is right in the heart.

What to know about me… I’m not sure, I barely know me. I have only lived with myself for well about 23 years, I have lived outside the womb for 22 years but I have been alive for 23 years, I like the air I breath even though my lungs believe I need help sometimes. And my body for some reason believes that most foods and most things that you can find outdoors are evil so therefore attacks them, is what makes the world one kind of place that I do highly to the most amazing enjoy.

What to know about Shannon DeRose, is that its just who I am. I am not the enjoyer of a small plant of random food. I ask way too many questions and I normally fall into trouble for this. I would not say I am an easy going person. I like who I am, and everyone else is learning to deal with who I am.

Now what to know about life is that there isn’t a place for everyone but I believe that we can make places for ourselves. We can make everyone have a place, but I think some of us come out with a whole lot of craze and we have to make a place in this world for us, and people who aren’t like us.

   What to know is that we can make places for us. We have to try. And never quit and sometimes we have to say behold….What we need to know is up to us…

Open letter to the churches who support BCH

 

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.