A Cheesy Blog Post

Sometimes I wonder why. 

Why am I here? Why are we all here?

Why do I exist in this way?

Why is it that we get this one life, just for it to be so fucking difficult?

To learn. That's what they say. Life's lessons. Everyone has their own issues. But why did I appear on this giant floating space rock, lucky enough to have the human experience and yet have to do it with paralysis? Kinda rude, God. 

I was served a shit sandwich. I somehow turned it into manure to grow a pretty awesome garden for myself, but I still wonder why I was served a shit sandwich in the first place? And the thing with the beautiful garden you grow for yourself is that sometimes you still have to deal with the leftover shit from the sandwich, and also other outside shit that comes along too (thanks, birds). Most days you don't notice it, but others it's all you notice. Is this making sense to anyone? 

So yesterday I was having a rough day (outside shit), and I was crying on and off, and I was in physical pain. I was feeling irritable and tired, and I felt like I couldn't deal with anything. But I tried to pull myself together. I was going to turn my day around. I had plans with a friend, and that was a good thing. Then I learned something from someone else that made me once again upsetti spaghetti. I was sad and overwhelmed, and felt like it was just the icing on the cake for my day. And then I drove home and pissed myself while trying to get out of the car. 

Right in front of my house. Didn't make it to the bathroom, and pissed myself right in the street. I'm not talking a little bit. I was sitting in a fucking puddle. Now THAT was the icing on the cake. 

Fuck you, world. 

It totally sucked, and today sucked too. But now, I am feeling better, and it's funny. I peed myself just feet away from my bathroom, because I can't hold my bladder very well!

It used to happen all the time, but it hadn't in ages. It's like life was reminding me, in an annoying way, that it can always get worse. But also that it can get better. So I peed myself once recently. Who cares! That's way better than before, when it was an almost daily occurrence. 

So anyway I've talked enough about my bladder now; the point is that sometimes life sucks, but sometimes the sucky stuff can be kinda funny. And you pick yourself up, dust yourself off for the millionth time, and you face the difficulties again. But you are stronger now. 

I still don't know why these are the cards I have been dealt, but they are my cards nonetheless. I think eventually they will be a winning hand, and maybe then I'll understand that they were the cards I needed all along.

That was so cheesy of me, but you get it. The point is that shit always seems to get better eventually. 

How I Feel About Love

TW: Mentions of depression, self-harm, anxiety, panic attacks, and death. 

Love is such a weird thing. So complicated and beautiful. 

I've been deeply in love twice before. Somehow both experiences were entirely different feelings of love. The first time was exciting, and new, and passionate. It was a fiery kind of love, but also the kind filled with daydreams about my wedding one day. It was like I was blind in love. I don't want my relationships like that. All fairytale, and in your head, just walking straight into heartbreak of some sort. I was obsessed. Like he was the best thing on the face of the planet. It wasn't healthy, but hey, I was fifteen. 

That break up destroyed me then. Or at least I thought so. I didn't really date anyone for years after that. I could never bring myself to actually go on a date. In college I tried to date, but I would have massive anxiety whenever I tried to go on dates. I would make myself physically sick from anxiety. I would cry to my mom that something must be wrong with me, because I was practically incapable of going on a date. 

I moved to Germany when I was 21. Something about the experience made me more confident in myself than ever before. I started casually dating people, and I had a great time. I also told myself I was not going to get in a relationship with someone while I was studying abroad, because I didn't want to have to do long-distance. It just seemed like getting into a relationship in a foreign country was a sure way to get heartbroken. With no serious intentions with anyone, I didn't have anxiety about dating. 

Then after about a year in Germany, I met him. He was persistent. He knew he wanted me. There was something about him that just allowed me to let him in. He was kinda dorky, but in a charming way, and his eyebrows were over-plucked, and he spiked up his hair. He was kind of unexpected. Maybe not exactly someone who I would have thought of in that way before. 

I was showing my friend how to use Tinder (the dating app), and as I was swiping, I saw him. We had met before one time. I thought to myself something along the lines of, "meh, why not." I didn't really think much of it until he messaged me. It felt pretty quick after that. The more time I was around him the more I wanted to be around him. I really liked him a lot, but I wasn't intoxicated by him. I was nervous around him on our first date. We went to a market, and I remember almost having a panic attack. I told him about my anxiety, and he was great about it. He took things as slow as I needed, and my anxiety went away. We were together almost a year. 

I have never been myself so much around another human. He saw me in all of my moments. He was my best friend and so much more. I could tell him my biggest fears and share every piece of me without fear of judgement. I never loved someone like that ever before. It was real love. Not that silly high school bullshit. I knew his flaws and loved him anyway. (We did fix the eyebrows though, haha). 

After breaking up, my world shattered. I shattered. I genuinely thought I could never be put back together. It was like the air was taken from my lungs. Something inside of me just snapped. I can't even say it's fully  better now. I'm still wounded, but I'm over the big stuff. I couldn't stop crying. For months, I just cried every day. I started self-harming. I think it was a control thing. Something I was in charge of. They were straight and uniform, like tally marks on a chalkboard. It wasn't about the pain, because I don't even have normal pain sensation on my thigh. I literally prayed I wouldn't wake up in the mornings. I'm not even religious. I had never been in such a dark place before. 

I started taking Lexapro. It helped me get back on my feet, so to speak (insert paralysis joke here). I started going to weekly cognitive behavioural therapy as well. Both made me functional again. It's been two, very long years. During my first year back home from Germany, I had crippling depression. Then this past year I have had an overwhelming amount of anxiety. I was not living my life anymore. I felt like I was crazy, and like nobody liked me. I felt worse than before, but in a very different way. I went from almost emotionless other than crying, to overemotional and high-intensity and panic attacks for a year. There was a phase in between those where I was doing quite well, and thought I was "back to normal" again. It obviously didn't last. Now that I am back on my medication, I am great again. 

I have been thinking so much more clearly about things lately. Not being clouded by crazy emotions. I was having a lot of highs and lows before. Now I'm mainly having highs, or at least being more positive about things that would've upset me before. I'm able to look at the "bright side" of things more easily now. 

I think about love sometimes. For a long time I felt like I would and could never love again. I would never love someone like that again, and nobody could ever really love me anyway. That was bullshit. I am lovable, and deserving of being in love again. He wasn't my "one great love" never to get another. It has been a great revelation. 

I am finally open to that love. Ready to fall into it without hesitating so much. I could only get to this point by letting go of the anger and pain first. I needed to find the bright side of a thunderstorm-of-a-situation to fully move forward. I finally did. 

Even though things ended horribly, I feel so fortunate to have loved someone so fiercely. Whether or not he really loved me the same doesn't matter. I learned the true depths of love that I am capable of. It is the most beautiful thing to realize how much love you can have in your heart. I learned so much about myself from that experience, and that is worth all the pain I felt. I am stronger than ever before, and I know what I deserve. 

In the last year, I have only been interested in like 3 people enough to even consider anything more than platonic friendship. After the first two people, I really felt like I was unloveable. But now I think it is possible again. I'm ready for it sometime, when it's ready for me. In the meantime, I'm just happy with the ride. 

I know this blog isn't my typical life update, but it is something important that has been on my mind, so I wanted to share my thoughts. If you stuck around to this point, thanks for the support! I'll try to write again soon. 

In the Better Days

So here I am- two weeks later, and back with another blog post! Am I going to stay consistent with these now? Who knows. I do know that for the last two weeks I have been slowly gaining more motivation to do things. Even though my lexapro is still not fully in effect, it disrupted the anxiety/panic attack cycle. That alone has made my life massively more enjoyable.

In the last two weeks, I have been more social than I have been in months. A couple days ago, I ate three full-sized meals throughout the day (because I had the energy to make them, and no nausea from anxiety!). I actually have a good appetite again, and I am very happy about it. I also have been doing my makeup in the morning more often. I have been sleeping better, and waking up earlier. There have been SO many positive changes. 

I have been spending a lot more time with my amazing brother (love you, Kev!), his awesome girlfriend, and his new roommate. We have watched movies together (if you haven't seen Prey yet, you need to) and played Mario Party (I swear I will win eventually!). I also got to see one of my best friends a couple times. 

For the first time in a while, life has just been good. It feels like my brain is quiet, tranquil. I'm not constantly going in circles about something that may or may not happen in the future. Not worrying about everything all the time.

I am dancing. I am singing. I am laughing. I'm looking at things from a glass-half-full perspective now. Hopefully things will continue to go in this direction. I am sure there will be some bumps in the road- there always are- but I feel confident things will still be mostly good.

Before I wrap this up, I want to include something not so great that happened to me today. Even though it's unrelated to my mental health journey with lexapro, it still is something that affects my mental health in a way. Today I went to the local coffee shop, and I opened the door for myself. Often times people are very nice and open the door for me, but of course, I am able to do it myself. The door is ADA compliant, as most doors are, or at least should be. As I opened the door, an older woman said to me, "good girl." 

I am not a dog. I do not need praise for completing extremely basic tasks. I am a grown-ass woman. A badass woman. I happen to be disabled, yes, but that does not make me less than an able-bodied person. So stop fucking patronizing us. I am not an animal. I am not a child.

I wanted to include that so that hopefully other people can learn from it too. We all have a lot to learn. 

I would like to leave this post on a good note, so I will finish by saying this: Life can always get better. Even when you feel like giving up, know that there really will be better days ahead. I know because I am in the better days.

Little Miss Lexapro

Almost two years ago, my life changed. I moved halfway across the world, back to my hometown. As if that wasn't enough, I also experienced the greatest heartbreak of my life thus far. I was broken, but I got better.

I was on antidepressants for a little over a year, but have been off of them for about 10 months. They saved me. I lost myself, and they helped me find my way back. I took them for the deep depression I had been in. I am not depressed anymore. Not like that. I am happy to be alive. Yet at the same time I have not been happy.

Instead, I have been anxious. Approximately four months ago I had the first of many panic attacks in a long time. It lasted a whole day, and even when the panic attack stopped, the anxiety didn't. After some days, it faded. Maybe it was a couple weeks, I don't really remember. Since that time I have consistently been having panic attacks and anxiety pretty much every week.

Most of the anxiety revolves around my health. I don't know how to stop it. I sprained my knee a few months ago and then pulled my back muscles at the same time. I felt so awful, it sent me into a spiral. I went to the hospital for muscle spasms, and they were concerned I was having a relapse of Transverse Myelitis. I was not worried about it, but it was still stressful. The MRI tech went home already so they decided to give me a CT scan. On that scan they found a nodule in my lung. Another thing to worry about. 

If it's nothing, it's nothing. If it's something, it's probably cancer. That's scary, but they said there was a 90% chance it was nothing. You cannot give those odds to someone with a rare disease. I have beat odds before. In bad ways and good ways. Percentages don't mean shit to me. Somehow I didn't let myself obsess over it.

Two months later, I got another CT scan. "The nodules look good. No cause for concern," they said. Nodules. Plural. There was only one on the previous scan. I pointed out that fact, and was told my scans would be sent to a pulmonologist for review. Cue me worrying. After a couple long days, my amazing doctor (really, she is incredible already just as a resident) called me at like 7PM and told me that everything truly was good. Turns out the first scan just cut off before the other nodules could be seen. They likely were there all along, and are so small that they don't think they are anything to worry about. Relief. Or so you'd think.

Recently I had a migraine that caused temporary kaleidoscope vision and peripheral vision loss. It was terrifying. I felt like I couldn't catch a break. It's like my body hates me. I started to feel lost again. This time, not in depression, but anxiety. I didn't feel like myself at all. I was consumed by the anxiety and panic. I finally broke.

It's been a week since then. I called my doctor and immediately started back on my antidepressants. They work for anxiety too. Hopefully I will notice the full effect in a month or so. The side effects have actually already inadvertently helped with my anxiety. Can't have intrusive, obsessive thoughts when you are spaced out. Or when you are so nauseated all you can think of is trying not to vomit. Today the nausea finally calmed down. I have an appointment with my doctor in the morning, where I will ask her to help me find a new therapist. I feel optimistic for the first time in a while. I am feeling like I'm getting myself back.

I think the main thing I have come to realize with all of this is that I might just be a lexapro lady. I stopped taking it because I felt like I had something to prove. I wanted to show myself that I didn't need medicine to be happy, but off of it I felt like my brain wasn't mine anymore. 

It's okay if I need the medicine. I don't need to prove anything to anyone. I take medicine for my bladder, and I've never felt like I needed to prove my bladder worked just fine without it. So why do that with my brain? I need the stability that lexapro provides me, so that I can enjoy life and live in the moment. It's okay. I'm not broken. I just need a little help, and I am glad I am finally accepting that help again. 

C. Diff.: The Infection That Made Me Give A Shit (Or 20) About It

Hello and welcome to my yearly blog post, where I tell you about whatever shitty thing is currently going on in my life! If you've seen my instagram, this is just going to be a lengthened version of my most recent post there. I like keeping you all in the loop whenever things are happening in my life, and as I always say, writing feels therapeutic to me. So here it is-

(TW: talking about death and weight) 

Life hasn’t been pretty for me lately. It’s just been one bad thing after another, after another, and this time the bad thing made me stare death right in the face. I have have clostridium difficile. A.K.A. C. Diff. It’s a bacteria in the gut that releases toxins. It gave me diarrhea for THIRTEEN days straight. It also caused excruciating pain. 

The thing is, I’m not so good with pain, because I always tell myself it’s really not that bad and that I should just try to push through it. But I was crying from the pain. I literally thought I was going to die, because I felt so awful. The worst part was that I got to a point where I almost felt like I’d give up. I couldn’t take it anymore. I just wanted it to end. It was really strange to be at that point, because lately I have been doing well in regard to my mental health. The pain was so overpowering though. 

My mom convinced me to go to the E.R. finally, after 10 days of this, and I got the diagnosis. C. Diff. is dangerous and extremely contagious. I might never have my digestive system go back to normal. Most people have never even heard of it. Who knows how I got it, but it seems like it decided to take over after the recent round of antibiotics I took for strep throat. Apparently the bacteria can live in your gut without causing harm, but if you don't have any good bacteria to overpower it, it decides to start producing spores that release toxins (something along those lines anyway). The toxins are what really cause all the problems. Damn those toxins! 

Besides the excruciating pain, I was going to the bathroom upwards of ten times a day, and I had nausea which made it difficult to eat. I lost a lot of weight. I am scarily thin, at a little less than 100 pounds. I haven’t weighed this little since I was 12 years old. I can see my bones, and I’ve just watched myself wasting away. It has been terrifying. I mean, I love that spooky season is coming up, but I don't need to be the skeleton myself! (Please excuse me for trying to lighten the mood with this AWFUL joke).

Anyway, I’m getting better now. I am finally eating full size meals again, but the food is bland and boring (it has to be since my GI tract is still sensitive) which makes me really sad. I am a gastronome. What is life without delicious food? I actually got angry a couple days ago when my mom said I couldn't have something I wanted to eat. I cried because of it. My mom was absolutely right, but it just crushed me to not be able to eat something with flavour. She has been so amazing during this whole thing. I keep coming up with things I'm allowed to eat that might be tastier, and she keeps making them for me. I wanted chicken and dumplings, and she immediately just got to cooking. I seriously cannot believe how lucky I am to have a mom like her. She has been working her ass off to keep me healthy, and to stop the spread of my nasty germs. She bleached my whole bathroom yesterday. I honestly don't know how she does it all. I think I just have Supermom. 

Speaking of bleaching, the bacteria can live on surfaces for months. This means that we have to try to kill all of it to reduce the chance of me getting it again. Although there’s a 1 in 5 chance that my infection won’t even go away the first time. That’s pretty stressful to think about, but then I realized that means there’s an 80% chance that it will go away. Thinking about it that way makes me feel better. If it does go away, then we need to reduce all other future chances of contact with it, which will mean bleaching the bathroom again and bleaching my room. 

It's all just been a lot on my mind. My therapist said that sometimes it can be a good thing to look our fear of death right in the face. I'm certainly learning a lot about myself through this situation. I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of life. I have to say, pissing yourself multiple times in a day is whatever, but NOBODY should have the experience of shitting themselves more than one time in a day. What kind of all loving god does that to someone?! What a cruel joke. I will say that this experience has made me so much more thankful for adult diapers. I guess this experience has also shown me that shit happens (literally), and there is no reason to be embarrassed about something that could happen to literally anyone. I think society is too uptight about bodily functions sometimes. It reminds me of a book that my nurse, Naomi, gave me while I was in C.H.O.- Everyone Poops (thanks again, Naomi!). Everyone should read that book so that people stop being so uncomfortable. I'm done being uncomfortable with my body. I'm done hiding or feeling ashamed because I have to deal with things that society views as weird. These things are not weird. 

I suppose I don't have much more to say for right now, except that I hope this infection goes away and stays away. I also hope that anyone reading this knows that even during times when we feel like we are alone in our experiences, there is always someone out there going through something similar. 

Love to all, and until next time.

Opening Up About My Mental Health

Hi beautiful people, 

it's been a while. Today I felt like writing, and I think the topic I'm about to write about is a very important one, especially during these trying times of COVID-19 (and the recent election). A lot has happened this year for all of us. A lot has happened for me. (TW: depression, anxiety, suicide).

Since I was in high school, I have dealt with anxiety and depression during various times of my life. Generally, I am the type of person who always tries to see a bright side in everything, but as many people know, depression can make that very difficult, if not impossible, to do. Back in March, I lost my wonderful grandma to complications from cancer, and all of the COVID stuff started really getting crazy right at the same time. I truly was so overwhelmed at the time, that I thought I had reached my pain threshold. I kept thinking every day that things could not possibly get worse, but they did over and over again. 

It felt like the world was spinning around me, and all I could do was keep moving forward with time. Luckily for, me I had wonderful support. However, a lot has happened since then, and I don't need to get in to all of the details, but after everything that happened with my ex-boyfriend, my mental health became the worst ever. I really did not know that I could feel that way. I think I had reached my pain limit for a while, and any other thing could have pushed me over the edge. Unfortunately, it was not just a small thing, so I did not just get a bit worse, I got significantly worse. 

I could barely move for like a week. I was so sick to my stomach with anxiety, that I barely ate anything for the whole week, and I ended up losing a lot of weight. I weighed only 100 pounds. I have not weighed so little since I was about 12 years old. It honestly is pretty scary to think about. I slept a lot, and I cried a lot, and I started to wish I didn't exist anymore. I should perhaps clarify that my thoughts were never really suicidal, just feeling like I wished the world would swallow me up one day, and all the pain would be gone. I recognized that these feelings were not healthy, and the week prior I had seen my doctor, who had suggested trying antidepressants for a little while at least until I could get set up with a therapist. I told my doctor I did not want to go on medicine, because I didn't think I needed it. After that horrible week however, I decided maybe her suggestion was a good one. 

I saw my doctor again, and she prescribed an antidepressant for me. The first day, I was absolutely miserable. I was so sick to my stomach I couldn't get out of bed or eat a single thing all day. Finally, I took some Pepto-Bismol, and thank goodness it actually helped. After that, each day was much better, physically. My doctor said I probably wouldn't notice a change mentally for a few weeks. Of course, naturally things got a bit easier each day, but I was still so incredibly depressed, and my thoughts were still very unhealthy.

Today, I am three weeks in, and I actually have been feeling better. I don't feel perfect, and I still have very difficult times, and times of deep depression, but not nearly as often. The feelings are manageable now. If you know me, you know I love music, and I love to sing all the time. There is almost always a song running through my head. When I get extremely depressed, the music stops. A few days ago the music returned. I have actually been laughing and smiling and dancing, and it feels good. 

I mainly just wanted to write this, because I was really against taking antidepressants before. Antidepressants are helping me deal with these difficult times, and the fact is, I needed the help. I'm hopeful to not need them for long, and I think once I get a therapist, that will really help me as well, so I will be able to go off of them. 

I wanted to share this, because while mental health is being talked about more these days, I believe it is still very stigmatized, and I want to show that it is a lot more common than we think for people to have mental health issues. I also wanted to show that it is okay to ask for help, and it's okay to recognize that you need help. 

Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me through all of my tough times (and through all the good times as well!). 

Lots of love,

Kimberlee

Lube, Phlegm, and Other Weird Health Things

Yet another month has passed since I last wrote, and it was a pretty rough one. It was so rough in fact, that I may have to do multiple posts just to catch you up on everything. This post will focus on my health, and how I keep getting sick (I may even be slightly sick now with a very mild cold, but it also may just be a runny nose). As always, I like to keep it real, so there may be a couple of pieces of information in this blog that may be TMI for the average person, but those things are just normal parts of my life, so therefore I will write about them anyway.

For starters, I ended up with a nasty cold, only a couple weeks after my throat infection. The cold also caused a slight fever, so I had to go to the doctor. I was coughing constantly to the point of gagging, and eventually after a few days I was actually physically sore from coughing so much. Part of the issue for me, is that I still don't have very great lung strength since my paralysis, so it is very hard for me to cough things up, which then causes phlegm to get stuck and make breathing hard, and is completely miserable. I also lost my voice, and I had a huge presentation due the same week. Thankfully my voice came back just in time for the presentation, and by some miracle I didn't have a coughing fit during it.

There was however, a really awkward (and also hilarious for me) moment after my presentation, when people were giving feedback. I should mention that before my partner and I started, our professor said that my partner should sit so that she and I were both at the same level. Afterward, when people were giving feedback, one guy says (I kid you not) that next time we should stand up. Everyone in the room got so quiet, perhaps from utter disbelief, until my professor said something to him about how I couldn't because I'm in a wheelchair and then there was some awkward laughter. I honestly think he was just meaning that my partner should stand, but it just came out so wrong and made him look like a complete asshole. I'm not sure why, but the incident was really funny to me.

Anyway, my cold finally went away, and I was super happy about it because I could actually hang out with my friends, which I really needed because I was starting to get a little bit depressed. I also I had a trip to Berlin with my study abroad program coming up that I was extremely excited about, so things seemed like they were finally going to be getting better. I could not have been more wrong.

Here comes the TMI. I was in the middle of class, when we had a ten minute break. As usual, I used the break to chat with my friends, check social media, and then go pee. What do I notice? I am peeing blood. I don't care how many times I have had it happen, it always scares me when blood comes from places it shouldn't. I immediately panicked thinking it was obviously a UTI, and I told my professor that I had to leave to go to the doctor.

I must say, I am proud of myself, because I got myself, terrified and alone, on the bus, all the way to the emergency room. It was dark and freezing cold, and for some reason there weren't really any clear signs for how to actually figure out which building I needed to go to, but eventually after following some ambulance lights I found my way. It was a four hour wait for some antibiotics and testing, and all I could do was hope that whatever bacteria it was, was not super resistant to antibiotics like previous UTI's I had had. I would hear back in three days if I needed to change antibiotics, and my Berlin trip was in two. For some reason, even with the antibiotics, the bleeding kept coming back. I finally realized that Berlin was not going to happen for me, and I cried possibly more than I ever had before. I was not only upset about the trip, but about my body and my paralysis, and I really hit a low point.

Flash forward to now, a little over a week later. The bleeding continued day after day, so I went back to the doctor. They are running more tests, but I think we finally found out the issue. It may have not been a UTI at all, but rather the new brand of catheters that I have been using here. The ones I use in the U.S. are polished, so I don't use lubricant with them, but the ones here are not polished. The idea is that the catheters may have irritated my bladder or somehow caused a cut or something. The issue is, how do you let it heal when you have to keep catheterizing? Well, what seems to be working right now, was a simple fix- lubricant. The only issue was that they didn't have any on hand, so the doctor said I could use pretty much any basic kind, so I had to buy it from the ~intimate section~ if you know what I mean. I am pretty comfortable with my body and talking about it (I mean obviously you can see that with this post), but I have to say I was a little bit uncomfortable asking where the lube was, especially in german.

I am still recovering mentally from all of the stress, and also there have been some lingering feelings of depression that have come and gone, but overall things are looking up. I just try to remind myself that there is always a bright side to even the darkest of situations. Also, I think it helps a lot to be able to laugh at yourself (I had to buy freaking lube!!), and to know that things will always get better. Plus, I have some pretty great friends here who are super supportive, so they help me stay positive too.