#anyway thats also when i got a snuff kink. had to cope somehow

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Wait, you have a terminal illness?

Man I JUST wrote a whole thing on that, and then took a sleeping pill and a shower and come back to this. Like, not to say this is hate mail or anything. Just weird to get. Cause... Like. Yeah. I do. I'm pretty open about it. I let most people know fairly soon after meeting them tbh. Also this is the "People having chronic illnesses" site. Who gets surprised to learn someone they follow is dealing with a crippling illness?

Anyway, like I said, sleeping pill + shower means I don't have the energy to get like... Into It.

But yes I have COPD. I was diagnosed with it when I was 22...ish? But I likely have had it since I was a toddler. I had an asthma attack as a toddler, but I didn't actually... have asthma. They diagnosed it as such at the time, but I never needed an inhaler or had shortness of breath. I'd just get congested All The Fucking Time, for months on end, every fucking year. Like... it was only 5 or so years ago that I learned that a nebulizer with a huge surplus of albuterol was NOT actually a common household staple you just keep next to the band aids and peroxide.

Then I moved to Maine. And I started getting a LOT of asthma attacks every summer. Got an inhaler, it did absolutely nothing. Went to a free clinic (broke college student life woo) and they diagnosed me a bit and went "Yeah man. Your lungs are fucked. We would need X-rays or a CT scan to tell you how bad it really is, but judging by your breathing, you have another two decades or so left before it becomes life threatening, but you will probably need to be on oxygen sooner than that." (Paraphrased, obviously)

Turns out I had Chronic Bronchitis this whole time, AT LEAST since high school, maybe even from infancy (fuck both my parents being chronic smokers). Humidity triggered it and made it so much worse, but I grew up in the desert so it went RELATIVELY unnoticed.

There is no cure for COPD. You don't get better for it. You deal with it for the rest of your life. There are some things that alleviate symptoms, but they tend to be rather expensive.

But... it's not all down hill from here!

One of those treatments is "Puliminary Rehabilitation," which is basically physical therapy but for your lungs. And like I can't afford it, but about 3 and a half years ago I got something similar that helped!

Peak COVID, election season, I live in fucking Texas. I go to the polls, and voter suppression is a hell of a bitch. "Sorry. No one wearing a mask is allowed to vote. For uh.... voter fraud reasons. Gotta he able to see if you match your ID"

I've dealt with voter suppression in the past, ranted about it here quite a bit. But this was the first time it was over something I could just turn off like that. So... I swallowed my pride, took off my mask, and went to go vote.

AND I GOT FUCKING COVID FROM IT. Worst fucking pain of my life, I would rather break a bone. Fuck that was awful.

But I also got something else. Long-COVID. For a year straight, I would cough violently several times per day. Which sucked, and was painful.

But uh... it turns out... is GREAT exercise for your lungs, and great at removed shit gunking them up. After a year of coughing I felt better than I ever had before. I got covid and somehow ended up coming out the side HEALTHIER. Massive win! I am never taking that gamble again.

My lungs felt a lot better... until about two years ago when they started deteriorating again. And now I'm right back where I started. Maybe got a few extra years out of it. Who knows? But... yeah. I'm gonna die one day, and it is fairly certain to be asphyxiation.