#have a consult next week and hopefully ill start next month

[transdelgado]

day 3 of flipping my sleep schedule and i'm starting to feel it

[tkbrokkoli]

;v

[dailyaudiobible]

02/26/2023 DAB Transcript

Leviticus 19:1-20:21, Mark 8:11-38, Psalms 42:1-11, Proverbs 10:17

Today is the 26th day of February welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you as we greet a brand-new shiny sparkly week. And before this week is out we will…we will greet a brand-new shiny sparkly month. That is where we find ourselves in the year. I can't believe we are already…well…let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but we are about to greet the third month of the year. Didn't we just start this year it feels like? But here we are day by day step-by-step, the next step forward together. And that next step will lead us back into the book of Leviticus. We’ll read from the New International Version this week and today Leviticus chapter 19 verse 1 through 20 verse 21.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for this brand-new week, all shiny and sparkly and offered to us as a gift to live, have life, and enjoy fellowship with You and one another. We thank You for this week. We ask that You lead us on the steps that we need to take and on the choices that we need to make. And along with the psalmist we pray, as the deer pants for streams of water, our souls pant for You, our souls for You, the living God. It is Your presence that we seek every moment of this week that we might be awake, alert and aware that You are always with us, that You are always leading us, that we just need to pay attention. Ans, so, help us Holy Spirit to slow down and pay attention, to consultant wisdom, to allow Your Holy Spirit to lead us in the way that we should go. Come Holy Spirit into all of this we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, my Daily Audio Bible family this is Work in Progress. I have kind of an urgent prayer request for my daughter. My daughter over the last few years has really struggled with I guess mental illness and it's led to some very dark paths for her including drug addiction, which she's gone through treatment for, but her life has still been a mess and she's destroyed it. And the other day about a week ago we got a call from her, and she had said…she had said that she had been raped. And…and we just got a call from our other daughter who…who said that she has spoke with her sister and she's afraid that she's being trafficked, which is kind of like the thing I was afraid the most would happen. And anyway, we can't reach her, we don't know where she's at and I'm really afraid for her. You know growing up she…she loved God's word. She used to listen to Daily Audio Bible. So, she has God's word in her but she needs help and she needs healing, like real healing. So, if you would please pray for her. Pray for her safety. Pray she's rescued from whatever she's experiencing and also pray for justice for anybody that's hurt her. Thank you, family.

Hello DAB this is Kay from Ohio I want to pray for Kevin who called in I think it was the 16th or 17th of February but he said he was just getting divorced from his wife three weeks ago and he's just worried about his kids, his house, what is he gonna do from here on out. And Kevin I'm speaking from experience, it's hard. It was hard. I didn't know which way to turn. And I knew God, but never did I draw closer than I did at that time at the hardest time of my life. God drew me in, and I had no other choice but to trust Him and to do His holy, divine will. And He showed up. So, remain faithful and know that God has it all in His hands. God bless you.

Hey there dabbalamma family this is Dare Dreamer in Indianapolis just wanted to give you guys a little prayer encouragement. Gonna pray for three people hopefully if I can in my words few. First of all for the son of Tanya who…whose friend Melissa called in from Albertville on the December 5th podcast. Just wanted to lift her friend's son up and for the spouse who left him, just please and blessing over him. As a …yeah…as a  __ he took some hits and deals with mental health problems. And yeah, so many of our veterans have to keep fighting on in that way so it's one of them in prayer. Lord I…actually I just want to also pray for…for Delta Echo Fox…Foxtrot. I can say that…down in Texas for his boss, may his boss find comfort and peace in you, yeah, God. And lastly for our lovely lovely sister Radiant Rachel who is so kind to pray in for us all the time. So, Lord cover all these people. Let them be blessed in You, let them receive You and abide in You and find everything in You that they need. I pray this all in your name. Amen.

Hey this goes out to From Junk to Treasure. This is Micah in Awe in the Kansas City MO area? Sister do you know who you are on the Lord? You're so important to the Lord sister. I've heard you pray for so many. I've heard you bless so many and encourage so many. Satan doesn't like it. He's trying to mess with you. Remember who you are in the Lord and remember that life is full of valleys and mountains, springs, summers, falls, winter. You're in a winter period. You'll come out of it. Things will get better, and I know you know it. I know you believe, and nothing could take that from you. But I am gonna ask, Lord we ask for deliverance Lord. She's looking around, she's looking from which way her help will come. Lord ride into this situation like a mighty warrior. Destroy the enemy with a simple breath and laugh at her enemies Lord. Destroy anything that would cause a decrease of peace and joy in her life Lord. Just bring that peace back. We need our sister strong, blessing, and encouraging others lower like she was, and she still is. But we need her strong and we need her happy for that Lord. She's a strong prayer warrior and You know it Lord. You know her faithfulness in Your kingdom, and we just ask for some peace in her life and deliverance for all the things that are going on. Her family Lord, let her family be blessed because of her, because of her love for You Lord. Let it…let it reach into her grandkid’s lives, her daughter's lives. Just bring about peace in all the different ways. Send the angel armies to guide her family Lord and start bringing them into the truth of who You are, the grandsons, and just bless her Lord in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Junk to Treasure this is God's Life Speaker. I am going to talk, read, and pray through Nehemiah 4. Prayer through hard patches is what I call this chapter. The enemy will taunt us. Pray. The work will be hard and even discouraging. Pray. Verse seven says the breaches began to be closed and it angered the enemy. The enemy will heat up. Pray. Verse nine says but we prayed to our God and because of them we set up a guard against them day and night. Set up a guard and pray. Verse 13 is talking about exposed places to gather and keep your faith. It says then I stationed the men at the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places. And I stationed the people and families. We’re your family. With their swords spears and bows. Pray. And in verse 14 it says do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your brothers and your sons and your daughters and your wives and your houses. Rally up. And verse 20 it says our God will fight for us. God will carry on. All we need to do in verse 21, so we carried on the work with half of them holding spears through the dawn until the stars appear. Heavenly father the DAB family is gathering around from Junk to Treasure. In the name of Jesus, we come at her finances, we come at those relationships, we come at the things that are just knocking her down. Lord we ask in the name of Jesus that you lift her up above these things. Amen.

[llyncooljones]

black ink, red petals - rowaelin month day thirteen.

ao3 || masterlist || rowaelin month '21 masterlist

prompt: tattoo parlour/tattoo artist, flower shop/florist au.

word count: 1382

trigger warnings: language, mentions of death.

tag list: @live-the-fangirl-life @rowaelinismyotp @rowanaelin @surielandiareendgame

Aelin tries to ignore the couple sweeping around her store, arms wrapped around each other, cheeks red, hair mused.

She really does try, she promises.

She busies herself in her work, ordering flowers by the dozens, ordering cellophane and tissue paper, ordering c cup of coffee as bitter as she feels whilst watching the couple laugh and point and love in her store.

She’s had an issue with people being happy since she first became massively unhappy, in the few weeks her life fell apart. Her parents died, she took over the store, someone sued the store, her best friend and cousin moved across the world.

And all that was on the fifth anniversary of her breakup with the only man she’s ever loved. Safe to say, she hates that week more than any other week she’s lived through.

But now, it’s hitting a year since she’s lost her parents and took over  Kingsflame Bloomsmy thriteenth , her parents’ florists. The store is large, the flowers sorted by colour and type. Pre-made and made-to-order bouquets available, centre-pieces, wedding flowers, funeral flowers.

Aelin thinks the year anniversary of things is special, her one-year anniversary with the aforementioned only she’s ever loved had been one of the best nights of her life, and she’s never forgotten the details of it. From the shady cabin in the forest to the wine, he had poured for her, to the shade of blue his dress-shirt had been.

On the one-year anniversary of their breakup, she visited their old apartment and made best friends with the girls renting it out and had never regretted the decision, until they started to bug Aelin as to why she was there in the first place. She’s never told.

And now, it’s the one-year anniversary of her parent's death and she’s decided to make a conscious decision to do something. And she knows what she’s doing.

It’s another part of the reason why she’s pissed off with the couple, the ill-timed pair came in just at the second she was standing up to put the ‘closed’ sign on the door, and then head next door for her consultation.

She was supposed to have left twenty minutes ago, but the two love-struck fools have taken so long in her store that she’s tempted to kick them out on the grounds of... tampering with the displays.

They finally approach the checkout desk, a plain and boring bouquet of roses clutched in the man’s hand, his credit card in the other while his girlfriend hangs off of him still, her head tipped towards him like no one’s fucking business.

She charges them, allowing the man to pay contactless, despite wanting to annoy him by telling him to use the chip and pin machine.

They leave, finally, and she hurries to the door, everything she needs for her consultation on her person or in her pockets and puts the ‘closed’ sign up in the glass doors Hopefully, no one decides to pull a fucking move and shatter her glass windows, glass windows that she loves so deeply she spent too much money on them.

Her coat is wrapped around her, the December weather in Orynth being no joke, you step out without a coat, you are going to get hypothermia or frostbite.

She doesn’t make the rules.

She furrows her eyebrows under the cover of her fluffy coat hood, staring into the tattoo parlour just next door to her, the outside is painted a dove grey that she’s always envisioned on her kitchen cabinets. Across the top of the storefront is a scrawling sign that reads  Ink Theory, and just beneath it,  piercings, and tattoos.

The sign is painted black, and a red and white swirl faintly appears through it and she really loves the design. The front windows are the same as her own, only these are frosted until halfway up, and Aelin guesses it’s to give clients some privacy from the nosey eye of the public. She walks in, smiling when an old-fashioned store bell rings to announce her entrance.

“Hi, I’m here for a consultation with one of your artists, at three o’clock. I’m late, I know. It's just had too many people in the store, I won the florists next door by the way, and they wouldn’t get out and I didn’t want to kick them out because I didn’t want a bad Yelp review or some shit, but I was really snappy with them, and it took me a while to debate whether or not to charge them an extra dollar for every minute they made late, but |I didn’t so I'm a good person, I guess. Sorry, I ramble when I'm nervous.”

“First tattoo, huh?” Asks the blonde sat at the reception desk, his blonde hair contrasting with his skin tone perfectly, “They are always daunting, not knowing the pain and how it’s going to feel. I get it don’t worry.”

“It’s actually, no, it isn’t my first tattoo. I have other tattoos, but they were all done by my boyfriend, and they didn’t really hold the same meaning this one does. The first one he gave me was a tattoo that said bite me, I like it on my ass cheek. Then it was some quote I liked on my ribs, a few others here and there. But then we broke up, and tattoos kind of felt like our thing, so I didn’t get anymore. And now here I am, shitting my pants and getting my first tattoo in six years.”

The blonde guy shifts a little in his seat, his eyes searching the wall behind him, the drawing and already-used templates sat behind frames on display. She saw them as she walked in, admiring the three frames filled with tattoos done in the Old Language.

“Also, uh, who did those tattoos in the Old Language, I was hoping to add some to my tattoo. But I couldn’t find an artist near enough who specialised, or who even knew the Old Language beyond hearing about it in history. I’m going to leap at the chance to get them to tattoo me,” her words are happy and frantic and nervous.

The only thing that ever calmed her beforehand had been the soft praises he’d always whispered, the steady weight of his hand just beneath the area he was tattooing, the scent of his cologne surrounding her.

In other, simpler words, him.

The blonde cups his hands around his mouth and sets to shouting in the direction of a black-painted door, “Yo, bird boy, there’s some chick out there who wants to check your work out. Come on out, you hermit.”

A thump on the door sounds throughout the studio, and a second later a taller, larger, seemingly very pissed off man walks through the door next to the other, nodding in greeting to the blonde before leaving the studio.

“I’m coming, don’t worry your pretty little head, boyo.”

The voice is similar to one she’s never forgotten, but the vowels are drawn out for longer, the words rolling over his tongue for a while longer than they used.

Swinging open, the door reveals a body she’s always thought of and a face that she’s never forgotten–not even on her benders.

His green eyes are bright and laughing, his eyebrows thick and light and somehow the perfect shape. His jawline is hard and sharp through his stubble, his cheekbones much the same. His nose is still bent from that punch she’d thrown at him in the second grade, the faint scar above his lips from the cut she’d gifted him in addition still there.

“Rowan?” breathy and vulnerable, she curses herself and the way her heart is beating too fast in her chest.

“Oh shit, this is the boyfriend you used to have, damn. Rowan, my man, good catch.” The blonde receives a burning look from Rowan his eyes sharp and focused now, the edges a green that verges on being black.

“Not good enough to keep, though.” She can’t stop the words, they’re pushing from her mouth before she can stop them and she wants to die when he stares her down, his eyes searching hers for answers she used to give him.

This isn’t good.

[rinphoria]

hey kai !! ive been doing good recently and i hope you have been too :)) i started watching a show called the mentalist and i love it so much. its about a CBI consultant whos chasing a serial killer called Red John (he killed his wife and daughter) as well as him solving other homicide cases. its literally the most clever show ive watched and im in love with it. i just found out who red john is and omggg im shitting myself. it so so good !!

i also went to a cafe with my friend the other day and i had the most amazing french toast. honestly words can't describe how beautiful it was. there were lots of fresh fruit and cream on it and i also tried dragon fruit for the first time !! it wasn't particularly nice, so i don't think ill be trying it again tbh. im also preparing and shopping for an internship im starting in a week. im a little nervous but hopefully it goes well :))

that's all i can remember, my memory is so so bad. oh im also planning on going to a pottery cafe with my friend, where they let paint clay plates and stuff like that. it looks really cute and i can't wait !!

what about you my lovely ?? please tell me about everything and don't leave out any details, i wanna know and im interested (only if you're comfortable ofc). i hope you're having an amazing day my love <33

lija hi!! ahh i smiles so hard when i saw this in my inbox :)) lemme reply under a read more so i don’t make a super long post haha

that show sounds vaguely familiar, like i’ve heard of it but haven’t watched it. i’m pretty into true crime though so i might check it out! i just finished my third watch through of criminal minds so it would be nice to give something else a try. your meal sounds like it was amazing!! i’m more of a waffles person but you can’t beat fruit and cream, ahh i’m glad you enjoyed it! ooh an internship :o are you excited for it? tell me about it if you’re comfortable :) wishing you luck with it as well! i’ve been to one of those pottery places before and they’re lots of fun! i’m far from artsy but it was a fun time so i hope you and your friend enjoy yourselves

this past week has been a little busier for me lol, i only have a month before i move back on campus for school so i’ve been trying to enjoy the rest of summer while preparing for that. my cousin convinced my to pick up kdramas so i have a couple of those i want to get through before i have school work to worry about again

i also ended up reconnected with this guy who i went to middle school with so we’ve been hanging out :) i think we’re going to go the amusement park next week so i’m looking forward to that!

thank you for telling me about how you’ve been! it’s so nice to hear from you 🫶🏽

[pitiless-achilles-wept]

Lost Weekends: Chemo Progress Report

Hi friends,

I'm writing you from my sofa, where I spend an increasing amount of time (much to the delight of the cat), at the end of my second post-chemo weekend. My last update was a month ago, right after I had done the considerable work of enrolling in the clinical trial at Penn that looks at treatment with chemotherapy and the immunological agent atezolizumab vs. just chemotherapy. My first session was on January 30th and I had a bit of good luck (for a change) and was randomized to the arm of the trial that got both the chemotherapy agent and the immunological agent, rather than the control group! (That's why I look improbably happy about my IV infusion in the attached photo.)

So far, the side effects are pretty tolerable. They don't really show up until days 2 or 3 which, since I go on Thursdays, pretty much means a Lost Weekend to symptoms. There's nausea, but I'm able to manage it with medication, and then there's very intense fatigue. I said to a friend at the outset of this trial that I consider myself a connoisseur of fatigue, having suffered chronic fatigue for years that was bad enough for them to do a bone marrow biopsy to verify that I didn't have cancer. (That's how I know I didn't have it in 2016.) This particular strain of fatigue is both familiar, in that the physical effects are undeniable and demand immediate rest, and unfamiliar because I get foggy-headed in a way I didn't before. Some folks refer to memory and concentration problems they encounter as "chemo brain," but I think this is less intense, more like being sleep deprived or a little sick. Honestly, the whole package is like having a bad flu. It lasts about 5 days and the symptoms are pretty similar. So, not great. But also not the worst. On this study, I go to Penn for treatment every 3 weeks. It takes all day, in part because when you get treated with a drug that's in trials they have to release it from the "experimental pharmacy," a process that can take multiple hours (as it did last Thursday). I'm really glad I only have to go every 3 weeks (plus visits for scans) and not every week, as I was doing before, both because it gives me the opportunity to recover from the side effects and have a bit more of a normal time in between visits. Also, they are a huge pain.

I know that may seem obvious, since chemo is clearly a terrible way to spend a day. But the truth is that it's actually less bad than the exhausting apparatus surrounding the visit. I tend, as usual, to minimize the more distressing aspects, both to myself and others, because it's just what needs to be done and, in a situation as colossally unfair as this one, the inconvenience or annoyance of actually going to the hospital pales in comparison. But, if you're curious, here's what it's like.

A day going to chemo for me starts pretty early since I live about 45 miles from Philadelphia and since I-95 is always terrible. Driving can take anywhere from an hour and ten minutes (without any traffic) to 2+ hours (if there's an accident). So if I'm supposed to check in at 8:30am I have to leave the house ideally by 6:30--which I NEVER manage to do because I have a lifelong hatred of mornings--but definitely before 7:00. This means getting up around 5:30 or 5:45. Again, I know people get up this early all the time, but if you know me you know that I am basically incapable of falling asleep before 1am (unless I'm very sick).

So I set out on this early venture, but not alone. I have an intrepid and sleepy friend with me to drive, both because I'm not allowed to drive myself home and because parking at the hospital is such a nightmare that often I have to hop out at a corner or intersection to make my appointment time. I did, however, learn that you get completely free parking if you get chemo! (This isn't true for other kinds of appointments.) My intrepid friend will meet up with me again in the cancer center and, usually, work remotely throughout the day while we sit in a series of chairs and check in with a series of doctors. I'm really grateful for this company because something that no one tells you about cancer is how incredibly boring it is a lot of the time.

The first medical thing that happens is that the nurses at the "infusion center" (which always sounds more pleasant than it actually is, as though it should come with scented oils) access the port through which they draw blood (usually about 10 tubes of it) and through which I'll receive chemo later. After they collect blood samples, I head to the waiting room for my oncologist, who I have to check in with before I can receive treatment. We have to wait for my blood tests to come back to prove that my body is functioning well enough for me to poison it. That sounds kind of backwards, but basically I have to have baseline body functions that are good enough for me to withstand chemo. (Oh, at some point they also do my vitals--height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation--which they'll collect again several times.) I also consult with my oncologist and the study coordinator about any side effects or questions and have a physical exam of the palpable tumors.

Next, assuming my numbers look good, I can check in for chemo. Penn has private rooms, which is different from the infusion center in Princeton. Some of them have lovely views of the city and some are windowless prison cells. I've had one of each. It's just luck of the draw. But I can certainly confirm that having natural light makes a big difference. By this time I've been at the hospital for 2-3 hours. The next phase is the most frustrating, which is waiting for the experimental pharmacy to release the immunological agent, which I have to receive first. The first time it took about 90 minutes, the second almost 3 hours. Once they get that, they can finally start the infusions. I get the immunological agent, followed by pre-meds for chemo (a long-acting anti-nausea drug, a short-acting one, many others to make the process less awful by controlling my reaction), followed by chemo itself. Together, all the infusions take about 3 hours.

My total time at the hospital is something between 6 and 7 hours. The driving, total, is about 3 hours. So, all in all, it's a 9-10 hour day. I often manage to use this as a time to enjoy the company of the friend who goes with me, since how often do you get to spend that much concerted time together? Often one or both of us is working, though increasingly I get spacey enough that I prefer to read, listen to a podcast, or just nap. Once I get home, I usually nap and, hopefully, see another friend who brings by dinner. These little acts of company make the biggest difference to me. I feel somewhat bad, since my exhaustion means I'm not often up for long visits, but just having another person around is tremendously reassuring. Dropping by, or being there while I nap or read, does a lot to break me out of the isolation that I can feel by being trapped so much in the physical symptoms of my treatment experience.

Illness is very isolating and makes you very vulnerable. No one else can endure the treatment for you and, in a way, the pain and discomfort is fundamentally incommunicable. Yet the emotional experience doesn't have to be similarly incommunicable and company (or well wishes) is a major antidote to that risk. So, as I wrap up this post-chemo weekend, I'd like to say thanks for reading and sharing it with me.

Love, Bex

[thatunhealthysideblog]

Mental Health Update

Original post is here

So my doctor had put me on a waiting list for an outpatient psychiatry assessment a couple months ago... As I said in my original post I didnt think I would be hearing from anyone, especially considering the current public health situation, for several months. I got a call a few weeks ago, to my surprise, to schedule the appointment with the psychiatrist. I had the actual appointment late last week.

I think out of all the people I have spoken to (including a CBT and a counsellor) the psychiatrist seemed to get the best grasp of what was happening in my mind within the short amount of time I spoke with her. I felt like there was a lot to say, but she seemed to understand what I was saying and the implications behind it also. She phrased it best that my mental health isnt so much affecting my functioning (working, for example) as it is affecting my quality of life. Ive never had it explained that way, but that made so much sense. Im not really living.

So essentially Ive been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder with a secondary diagnosis of Persistent Depressive Disorder (also known as Dysthymia).

Its kind of a relief to be officially diagnosed???

The psychiatrist recommended that I take medication (an SSRI), see a CBT individually as finances allow, and attend a group therapy program (which Ill be assessed for later this month). I spoke with my GP and they also recommended the medication.

I was a little bit nervous at first about taking medications for a mood disorder? I think this is partially because my parents are wary of these kinds of medications and their side effects. I think theres a bit of a stigma there. And I think to some degree I was just worried because thats what I do - I worry and become anxious about things I dont necessarily need to be worried about. I was (and still am a little bit tbh) worried about interactions between this new medication and my current lot of medications, potential side effects, dramatic mood changes and such. But Ive been assured that there will be no interactions. But at some point in all this process I just decided that it is what it is. I cant keep living like I have been; it really isnt healthy. And hopefully the medication will give me enough mental/emotional capacity to work on myself and get training and expose myself to stimuli that will ultimately help my mental health.

So I picked up the medication today. The GP has prescribed a “lite” dosage (half the average dose), and if I tolerate it then I can move to the full average dose after a couple weeks. I likely wont see any improvement in mood for several weeks. The GP is really supportive and if anything happens I can usually have a phone consultation with them within a day. Actually having the bottle in my hands ramped up a whole other bout of nervousness. Like, wow, this is REAL. Im really praying it goes ok.

This actually ended up being a good day to grab the medications though because I dont have to work the next couple days. So if I do start experiencing mild side effects, Ill be able to know what they are before working again on Monday.

Anyway, thats the update. My mental health journey has been a whirlwind the last couple months, as opposed to my stomach distress journey which has been put on an abrupt holding pattern until the pandemic ends.

All in due time, I guess.

[letsdiscoverkitty]

CPA update (30th August 2019)

I did not plan to write this this evening but I needed to get this out somewhere.

I know I haven’t been very present online and I can only apologise for that but as you can imagine things have been quite challenging since being admitted. I had my first CPA so I thought I would make a little post to help me begin to process it/get some thoughts down....(warning: very long post ahead, snacks may be necessary, and I am sorry if it does not read well/make much sense, I literally just typed my heart out)

For those who are not sure of what one is, a CPA is basically a care plan review where your treatment team review the past few weeks/months (time since the last review) and then start to plan the next stages of your care. It is a chance for different members of your treatment to meet and make sure that everyone is on the same page. Today my CPA consisted of my consultant, one of the nursing staff from the ward, the OP ED nurse I was seeing before I came in, myself and my parents. The first half of the review was just between professionals, I was then called into the room for a discussion followed by my parents nearer the end.

It is hard to remember what I have shared online so I am sorry if some of the things I mention do not make sense but I will try to cover most of what happened. I had my ward round on Thursday (due to the bank holiday weekend just gone), in which a lot of new ideas were brought to the table as, well, no one really knows what to do with me… A week or so ago I wrote a letter to my consultant as I was beginning to worry about what the plan was for when I was discharged (as it was being implied that I was to be discharged over the next few weeks)/that my community team were not replying to any messages and that I was concerned about going back home to live at my parents house.

My main worries with returning home were mainly because it is a place where I have been unwell for many years and I find that when I go back there it is almost like anorexia snaps back without me realising it/I can’t control it. Sadly due to being unwell at home for years, I do associate home with bad things, I also do not currently have no goals or things to be working towards (i.e. I have no education to go back to, no job lined up or thought about to go back to) and the worry is that I would be going back home to just anorexia and relapsing backwards. Throw into the mix that my mum retired last week, as well as the family dynamics always being quite rocky (along with being geographically being incredibly socially isolated), I think it is fair to say that I was extremely worried about the prospect of home leave let alone moving back home permanently and with very limited outpatient support.

A long story short, my consultant agrees that going back home is likely not going to help me move on/recover/give me a chance of living a life beyond this, however she also does not believe that staying in an acute EDU will help (which I do understand). In terms of why she thinks that being on the unit for longer might not help include that my weight has not been reaching the targets that are expected, I am struggling on leave/when I get given more control, as well as the usual pitfalls of being on an EDU like being trapped around a lot of other acutely unwell people, having the identity reinforced and the lack of responsibility/it not necessarily coming from me. I floated the idea of going to live in Reading with Andi however she shot me down straight away at that stage saying that I was far too unwell for that…

Anyway, to get to the point, she wants to apply for funding for me to go into residential treatment. This is not something that I know much about, although I do know that getting funding for a place is very very hard and that there are very few places that offer it in the country….from what she explained to me it is a more holistic approach, with the focus on helping you build a life beyond anorexia whilst also supporting you nutritionally. (it sounds far too fairytale-esque for my liking…)She said that as I have had a lot of psychological input and have been under services with very few gaps over the years, that it was obvious that a new approach was needed and that this style might be that. Apparently I have incredible insight/understanding however because the anorexic neural pathways/cognitions have become so strong and rigid, I find it near impossible to force myself to follow through with the theory that I know so well.

I honestly have no idea how I feel right now. I am utterly lost and confused and don’t really know what to do with myself. I feel like no one knows what to do with me/what will help and they are just trying to get rid of me. I want to recover, I really do.  My consultant said that it is not that I don’t want to or don’t have motivation, but that it is the degree of severity of the illness and the complexity of my case, which kind of helped but also left me feeling very broken and hopeless.

She tried to explain all of this to my parents today and I am actually relieved that she was able to speak to them about it as there is no way that I would have been able to approach the subject. She explained it in scientific terms and tried to be realistic about the whole process (which could likely take months to apply for funding, let alone get on the waiting list/pass assessments).

My OP team are apparently supportive of this and are going to work together with the IP team, my consultant and the therapist I was seeing as an OP to put together a proposal for the CCG. Sadly, as I have mentioned this is going to be quite a lengthy process and I don’t really know where it leaves me…If this were not being explored then I would be getting discharged to the same very minimal support that I have had over the past x years, which has not been enough in the past.

So what now? Good question. Basically I have been told that I have to “prove” to the CCG that I am not just in need of an acute EDU admission and that the funding would not be going to waste…this means that I have to show that I can maintain my weight in the community (or gain if possible) as if I were to relapse they would likely just say that I need an acute admission and refuse the funding, leaving me back at square one.

This admission was never going to be a long one, I knew that, but part of me was hoping for a bit longer…I suppose it has brought to the surface the necessity for a different approach to be explored, which I hope means something. Basically my admission can’t be extended, that has been made clear, and I now have a discharge date for two weeks time…with little to no idea of time length beyond that in regards to this talk of residential.

I honestly don’t know what to think or how to feel right now, I really don’t. Part of me thinks that they are making a big fuss over nothing and that there is no way that I will get funding as there are so many people out there with far worse scenarios than mine who need it more. At least I have a home to go to, I know there are many people who dont, so I should really just suck it up and try and do what I can at home with the support that I have.

I have no idea what the residential would entail practically but I am worried that it could end up feeding into my eating disorder even more? I know the reason for the admission would be to help me build a life beyond anorexia, but surely being stuck in a place like that almost reinforces that identity? I dont know, I am very confused about everything right now :(

Short term plan: I have an appointment set up with the ED nurse I am to see in the community for Monday morning and have been given a bit of extra leave this weekend to make it possible for me to attend. When I return to the ward on Monday afternoon I will be moving onto transition and have been promised that I will have a number of appointments with the dietitian over my last two weeks in order to create a realistic maintenance plan for when I go home (as well as trying to get my mum to attend an appointment with the two of us). I am also trying to get an appointment for my mum to come to a family therapy session (they have pretty much written off my dad as someone who can be supportive for a number of reasons which I do not want to go into right now) Being on transition hopefully will give me a bit of an opportunity to self-cater some meals and practice before I move back home for the foreseeable future.

It all feels very rushed and uncertain and I was not expecting to get this much leave this weekend so don’t really know what to do with myself but yeah I suppose this is where things are at. The ward has been quite a tricky environment so on the one hand I am glad to have some space, however Im also worried about it too.

I am sorry, I realise that this whole post probably comes across as extremely selfish and stupid - I wish I could shake myself/pull myself together and just do what I know I need to do but whywhywhy do I keep ending up back in the same place time and time again? I have tried so bloody hard over the past x years but it has never been enough….I do not want to end up being sent to a unit where I will spend months/my consultant briefly mentioned that admissions are usually between 1 and 2 years long…I really dont. but I dont know what else to do with myself when so many options have been explored. I am tired of it all, of everything. It is like I dont know where to turn anymore. Part of me feels like I am just getting palmed off from place to the next because no body knows what to do with me. sigh. I am sorry for throwing this pity party. I wish I had some more positive news to share with you all. I suppose yes I have made some progress since I was admitted. I have gained weight. I am no longer in as much danger as I was. I have had to face a lot of changes in terms of routines, eating different foods, times, I can think a little clearer, I have more concentration etc. Things are just very hard at the moment and having everything in terms of my treatment thrown up in the air like this has made me feel even more unsettled and uncertain about everything. I have no idea what the next few weeks/months may hold so for now I am going to have to continue to take each day as it comes and see where it takes me. Sorry again for the ridiculous  length of this post, you genuinely deserve a gold medal if you have stuck with me through this.

[e1e4n0r5]

A drop of tea to spill, just cos I need to put this into words

Seasons greetings, everyone. Even though I know I'm a bit late. For anyone who may be wondering why there was nothing on my blog to do with the holidays, or wondering why I haven't posted any original content in a good, long while, it's because 2019 has been a very shit year for me.

About this time last year (Nov 2018, to be precise) I started getting a lot of heartburn, acid, and indigestion, all coupled with the wonderful feeling in the top of my stomach and back of my throat that I constantly needed to yack. All the time. All day. Every day. With no relief.

So I go to the doctor and he diagnoses me with GORD, the fancy medical term for persistent acid reflux. He prescribes me some pills to help reduce my acid, and they do actually work...for a while.

Cut to Feb 2019 and I go back to the doctor (A totally different doctor sees me because that's just how my doctors surgery works) to discuss my prescription, because those pills I got in Nov are starting to give me side effects. Great. I talk with this 2nd doctor, who was lovely but seems quite perturbed that no investigation has been done into the cause of my reflux. After all, I am an otherwise perfectly healthy 26 (25 at the time) year old woman - why was I getting reflux out of nowhere???

He refers me for a breath test, which come back negative (Oh poop, that would have solved all my problems if it had been positive but hey-ho) Meanwhile I'm still taking these pills which are controlling the extra acid in my stomach but are still rocking my body with side effects. (TMI: nausea; diarrhoea; stomach pain, that is "pain of my stomach organ", like my stomach itself had been punched from the inside)

Please let it be known, up until about mid-May, despite these side effects, I was doing ok. Pretty good, I would say. Yes, there were days when I wasn't great. But overall, not too bad.

Then it gets to June, around my birthday. The side effects are getting worse and I'm starting to feel pretty shitty. No pun intended 😑 My parents go away for a week holiday and when they come back, I had apparently declined so much during those 7 days that they discussed it at length that night after I'd gone to bed. I was visibly worse, visibly sicker than I had been before they'd left, a mere 7 days ago. I was un-blissfully aware that my condition was indeed getting worse, seemingly by the day.

Never the less, I carried on as best I could.

This leads me to one night in June when I almost collapsed during a fitness class because I had felt so sick and in pain in my stomach. This episode actually caused my mother to contemplate calling for an ambulance to take me to hospital because I looked and felt so ill.

I have a phone call with another doctor (doctor #3) the next day, explaining my on-going issues with this first pill, the side effects, and my almost-collapse the night before. He prescribes me a different, gentler pill than the one I was on, in hopes that the side effects would not be as drastic. Well, he was correct. I did not have side effects from pill #2...Because pill #2 did not work against the stomach acid and I was crippled in less than 3 days.

Another phone call with a doctor (I honestly don't remember who I spoke to, everything was a blur at that point) and he tells me to go back to my old pills for the time being, but that he would also prescribe another pill, stronger than #2 but not as strong as #1, so it should control the acid but hopefully have less side effects.

(If anyone is still reading, thank you and I love you)

So I go back to pill #1 and with everything going on with this illness and my job, I just forget to collect pill #3.

About a week goes by, I'm still sick, I still have acid, the side effects have kicked in again now that I was back on pill #1, and I almost collapse for a second time at the same fitness class.

At that point, enough was enough. I had had it with this stupid acid and the stupid pills and the doctors not helping me feel better, so I booked an appointment with a private specialist, but that appointment was still 3 weeks away.

I go to work the next morning (the day after my second episode) and people can tell I'm not myself. My mum happens to call me just as I was putting my bags down at my desk, to check in on me, see how I was feeling that morning after what happened the night before. And I break down.

I have to find a private room because I am so upset, so distressed, and still feeling so ill. I am in tears on the phone with my mother, and we decide together that I had to go home, I was not fit to work, and I had to see a doctor that morning. Not just have a phone call, but actually see and speak to a doctor so that they could actually look at me and see how ill I was for themselves.

I manage to stop crying, get myself together a little, and pull my supervisor out of a meeting to tell her that I needed to go home. When she saw me with tears drying on my cheeks, she knew something was seriously wrong. As a rule, I don't cry when I'm upset. My colleagues had never seen me cry before, or even get slightly upset, so when I started crying again while speaking to this supervisor, the whole team knew how bad I had gotten. I manage to stutter out that I wasn't well and needed to go home and needed to see a doctor, and I headed home.

When I got home, my mother was on the phone was the doctors surgery, telling them that I needed an urgent appointment and that if they couldn't fit me in, we would be going to hospital because I could not wait for a regular appointment and I needed to be seen by a doctor that day.

They give me an appointment for that morning and my mother comes with me, to make sure that the doctor takes me seriously and doesn't just give me some new pill and tell me everything would be fine.

Because I felt like I was dying. I knew there was something wrong inside me, something was wrong with my body, and I felt like it was going to kill me if we didn't catch it. Whatever this was would be listed as Cause of Death on the certificate if I didn't get help. I didn't know what it was or how it would be treated, but I felt like I was dying, and I had felt that way for a while.

We go to the doctors and we're seen by a lovely female doctor who was very kind and sympathetic, and agreed that something had to be done urgently to help me. The first thing she did was sign me off work for 2 weeks, so I could rest and recuperate a little, take away the stress of work so that my body could get out of the fight-or-flight mode it had been in for the past several weeks.

The second thing was to refer me for an urgent procedure which would examine my stomach internally and see if there was anything physically wrong with it. I collected pill #3 from the pharmacy while we were there, which I started the next day.

One week later, I have the test at hospital, and finally we were given an answer. 7 months after that first appointment, 3 medications, half a dozen urgent phone calls, and being signed off work, finally led to an answer.

Hiatal hernia, 3cm.

A hiatal hernia happens when a portion of your stomach slips through the opening in your diaphragm muscle where your oesophagus joins with your stomach and that portion of your stomach ends up lodged in your chest cavity.

Fun.

This isn't a life-threatening condition, it's not even treated as a serious one. It's incredibly common, and research says that approximately 50% of patients with hiatal hernias don't even experience any symptoms.

Lucky bastards. Mine had me convinced I was dying.

Having that answer, that diagnosis did help. I wasn't dying. This was not serious, I would be ok.

Next came the question of what to do with this diagnosis. Several people I know have had their hernias for years and manage perfectly fine with no issues, complaints, or the need for medication.

So I could either learn how to manage it with the right medication, or seek surgery.

I went back to the doctor a few weeks later to discuss these options, and myself and the same lovely doctor who saw me That Day agreed that I would give it a few months and see how I fared on this new pill, pill #3 that I had been taking for about 3 or 4 weeks at that point.

Pill #3 did work better than #2, but alas had the same side effects as pill #1, admittedly to a lesser degree.

I gave pill #3 about 3 months, before I requested a new prescription, as it was now only, say, 90% effective against the acid and was still giving me side effects.

In comes pill #4. The doctor (not the lovely female doctor, a different doctor on the phone) explains that #4 is slightly stronger than #3 so should be more effective against the acid.

Nope.

Pill #4 did not help with my acid at all and came with even more side effects that #3. All cons, no pros.

Back to #3 only about 10 days later.

I go back to pill #3 for a while and just try to manage the side effects as best I can.

But about a month ago (mid-Nov 2019) pill #3 seems to just...stop working?? Out of nowhere?? I woke up one morning with stomach acid, and it wouldn't go away. I didn't think much of it, after all some days were worse than others. I just assumed I was having a bad day. But the next day, I had that acid feeling as well. And the next day. And the next. Before I knew it, it had been an entire week of that bad acid feeling, even though I was still taking pill #3 at the same dose I had been for several months. Nothing had changed, yet the pill wasn't working anymore.

Another phone call, another pill. Pill #5, which is where we are now. I've been on #5 for around 2 weeks, and I still don't feel great.

I have a specialist consultation booked for January, and I will be officially seeking corrective surgery.

Thank you for sticking with me while I try and sort my shit out.

TLDR: had a very shit year so haven't been creative or in the holiday spirit

[lottes-ocs]

one chapter (first chapter maybe? def towards the beginning though) of my story. i turned it in for a workshop in class (capped at 12 pages double spaced). a note from my workshop document:

“Since this is going to be a longer work, I will likely expand upon Adam’s personal and inner life towards the beginning, so that the breakdown and the subsequent conversation with Ezra don’t feel as sudden. I will definitely add more documents like the emails, maybe therapist’s notes or text messages, and I might play around with POV in some later chapters, however, my plan is for Adam to be the primary narrator throughout.”

also lmk if i get anything egregiously wrong. i do have ptsd myself, but i also consulted 2 of my schizophrenic friends to make sure i didn’t include any details that would conflict with that and also to get details about antipsychotics correct

tw for suicide mentions, mental illness, unreality, some graphic imagery.

[January 21st, 2019 // 9:00 AM] Since I got discharged from the hospital last month, I’ve been grateful to live alone. Granted, it makes the paranoia worse, but I’m the only one who needs to know how often I’ve tried to talk to shadows or woken up yelling at the void. And I’m the only one who needs to know that I, a 30-year-old man, have been sleeping with a nightlight. But look, when my room is completely dark, mirages of my father and Dr. Wronski appear in the corner with their faces peeled off like in an autopsy and they won’t stop apologizing. I tell them I forgive them and they double down, I offer them solace and they weep with guilt, I articulate my own guilt and they articulate what it feels like to die. Only the nightlight makes them go away. Does that all sound stupid? Sure it does, but it feels a lot less stupid when I just need some sleep after another day trying to balance crushing grief with debilitating mental illness with my normal-person job, teaching abnormal psychology. Classes have been back in session since last week, so for a week, I’ve felt like a fish teaching marine biology. Or something out of Mariana’s trench. Ezra walks into my office, looking just a little too put-together for the workday (as usual), perfectly-tailored pants, perfectly ironed shirt, and perfectly styled curls, and snaps me out of my self-pitying daze by setting down a large stack of papers on his desk next to mine. “The anxiety essays,” he says with an imperious sigh. “Was I this dumb in undergrad?” “Probably not,” I say. “You were a little older than them.” “And I actually had anxiety.” He’s made a point of bringing up his own issues since I got back. I think he’s doing it so I don’t feel embarrassed or isolated, but he does love to talk about himself regardless, and besides, the support of one grad student doesn’t outweigh the nastiness of some of the higher-ups. “Do you have any new bits, Ezra?” I try to change the subject to his comedy (he does standup on the side, and I hear he’s not bad). “Eh, nothing good. You look tired.” He brushes me off with forced nonchalance. “I’ve had plenty of work to catch up on.” There’s actually no reason that he should know why I was gone, it’s my business, but he definitely does. Everyone does. I work in the psych department, so the people here know what it means when someone’s witnessed the death of their mentor and is subsequently out for a month with no further explanation than “illness.” “Have you, uh…” he clicks his tongue in thought. “Did you drink coffee this morning?” I nod with an exasperated smile. “Well, y’know, the Keurig’s in the lounge if you need it. And I’m in 522 most of today if you need help. Catching up on work, or whatever.” He drums casually on the doorframe, shoots me finger-guns, and heads down the hall. I like Ezra. He’s my TA now, but we were both in grad school working towards our doctorates together, up until last spring, when I received mine. We’re the same age, and he’s definitely smarter than me (as he is most people), he just started college late. I think it’s very sweet of him not to be a condescending dick to me (I seem to be a popular target for condescending dicks lately) especially because Ezra can muster up a dangerous amount of condescending dickishness when he feels the need. However, I process absolutely none of what he said. I was listening, I was trying to listen anyway, but my head’s not working right, not right now. I really didn’t get enough sleep. It’s a vicious cycle. The hallucinations and intrusive thoughts keep me up, the lack of sleep worsens the severity of the hallucinations and intrusive thoughts. In fact, since I arrived at work forty-five minutes ago, I have kept a mental tally: Sudden and overwhelming urge to stab myself: 3 instances. Sudden and overwhelming urge to stab Dr. Carlisle for looking at me weird: 2 instances (fuck off, it’s not like I’m going to act on it). Sudden and overwhelming urge to break down crying: 45 instances. Rats underneath my desk: Yeah, I don’t know, I called maintenance and they told me they’re fake, so I guess they’re fake, even though I can see them. Hanging woman in the back corner of my office: Don’t mind her, she’ll be gone within the hour. I’ll be sorry to see her go, though. A sense of unreality is creeping in. I try to keep Dr. Beauchamp’s voice in my head, “if there shouldn’t be any real dead people in the room, there are almost definitely no real dead people in the room.” Well, there was that one time, you asshole. No, fuck it, there are almost definitely no real dead people in the room. I reach into my briefcase, desperate for the pill bottle, because I know my thoughts are going to turn into alphabet soup if I don’t do something soon. I split a Clozaril tablet in half and swallow it hastily. I am not supposed to split it in half, and I am not supposed to take more than one dose in a span of 24 hours, and I have a Ph.D. in psychology, obviously I know I’m lowering the efficacy in the long term and increasing my risk of side effects. But at this point, let me die of agranulocytosis if that’s what I’ve got coming. I’ll be out of a job and wasting eleven years of higher education if this shit doesn’t stop. Maybe that isn’t true. It feels true. Maybe it isn’t.

[January 21st, 2019 // 1:30 PM] FROM: Dr. Raymond Carlisle TO: Dr. Adam Collins SUBJECT: Checking in.

Dr. Collins, I sincerely hope all is well. I received word that you cancelled a lecture today. I need hardly tell you that you just had a month off for Winter Break, and two weeks before that for the beginning of your hospitalization. I hardly think an even further extended reprieve from your work is fair, and if you genuinely do, that’s a conversation we need to have. To be frank, Dr. Herrmann and I feel it is irresponsible to allow someone in your condition to continue to work, in the field of psychology no less. Though I do not at all doubt the competence of our colleagues at the medical center, nor your mental facilities, I feel compelled to let you know that if your psychological state continues to cause issues with your work the department might require you to take a leave of absence. While I hope your treatment plan begins to work to its full effect soon, your own safety and the integrity of this department are top priority.

Best wishes, truly,

Dr. Raymond Carlisle Head Professor, Psychology (555) 555-5555

My hands tremble with anger (and hopefully not tardive dyskinesia) as I type my reply.

FROM: Dr. Adam Collins TO: Dr. Raymond Carlisle SUBJECT: Re: Checking In

Dr. Carlisle, all is as well as it possibly can be needs to be. I don’t respect you as a colleague and I believe your total comfort in your new position, which I need hardly remind you is Dr. Wronski’s old position, is quite frankly borderline disrespectful.  If it’s irresponsible for someone in “my condition” to continue to work then why do you give a shit if I cancel my lectures? Leave me the fuck alone or I’ll mention you by name in my suicide note.   At the moment, it is difficult for me walk by Dr. Wronski’s old office, which I have to do to get to 525 (where that lecture is held). Could I request a change of   I was having a panic attack you absolute dick how are YOU allowed to continue to work in the field of psychology when you have NO compassion My new medication has occasionally been making me sick. That issue should be resolved either way after I meet with my psychiatrist next week.

Thank you for your concern, Dr. Adam Collins Department of Psychology

[January 22nd, 2019 // 10:30 AM] I think back to our last faculty meeting, at least my last faculty meeting, in November. It does feel like a while ago, and it’s hard to fathom that Dr. Wronski was still here then. It gets easier to fathom when Dr. Carlisle comes in and takes his seat at the head of the conference table, simply because of how wrong that is. I picture her there instead, how things are supposed to be, how it should have been. I think about how someone should have helped her when they still could have. I really picture her there instead for a moment, her image replacing Carlisle’s. I blink once and she’s gone, and he’s back. As he starts talking, though, I feel a tap on my shoulder and see her behind me for a split second, ephemeral and transparent like the dots in a grid illusion, then she walks away and disappears. My whole body is left feeling cold, sharp, and jolted, as if I fell on a blade without expecting to. I’m filled with dread as I realize Carlisle’s words are simultaneously turning to nonsense and growing louder in my ears, and a high, harsh noise like microphone feedback intertwines itself with his voice. Dr. Wronski reappears in his place again, but she is lifeless this time, blood pooling from her head like it was when I found her, circling her hair in a grim halo. Her eyes are clouded with even more film, her mouth is agape, and I can feel my breathing grow rapid. I squeeze my eyes shut. I know I am in the middle of a meeting; I will not fall apart like this in the middle of a meeting, not when my “mental facilities” are already being called into question. I pinch myself, internally repeating “there are no real dead people here, there are no real dead people here, there are no real dead people here—” “Dr. Collins, are you with us?” Dr. Hermann’s voice pierces through my mantra, entirely unfriendly, entirely accusatory, despite the faux-sweetness she is trying to summon. “Yes.” My voice sounds thin and weak, and blood rushes to my face. I shut my eyes again, since I feel tears prickling at the corners of them. Not fucking here, Jesus Christ, not fucking here, I think to myself. Then I think again about my last meeting, the old hierarchy, the time when I fell asleep at one of these in October after a particularly long night and Dr. Wronski just pulled me aside afterwards and asked if I was okay, and if there was anything she could do. And now the image of her corpse won’t leave my head. It overwhelms me. I don’t see her in the room anymore, but I might as well be back in her office when I first found her body, the first time in my life I had ever truly hoped that I was only seeing a figment of my imagination. The gun in her hand— I try to think of anything else. Anything to keep it at bay. I click my pen repeatedly (Carlisle asks me to stop), I scratch at my wrists and pull at my skin, anything to shift my focus to anything else. Nothing is working. The lump in my throat grows. My heartbeat gets faster, my chest starts to hurt, and suddenly I can smell the blood and rot that permeated the room that night, and I am helpless to stop it— Someone grabs me. I look up to see every eye in the room on me. I can’t breathe, I can’t speak, and I realize I’m in the middle of this meeting, crying and having a full-on panic attack, surrounded by people who already think I’m a headcase. I am sobbing and shaking and unable to steady my breathing and to them it seems completely unprompted at best, and at worst, it seems like it’s because Hermann and Carlisle snapped at me. And even in the midst of my abject humiliation, the image of Dr. Wronski lying in a pool of her own blood is still in my head, still absolutely fucking killing me, and I couldn’t calm down if I tried. I get up and walk out. That’s what fucking happens when I’m forced to try to power through episodes. I could care less what Carlisle does to me right now, I will not stay in there and continue to look like an emotionally unstable baby in front of my colleagues. I go to finish up my breakdown in the privacy of my office, catching a glimpse of myself in a window on the way and hating myself even more at the sight of my own disheveled hair and bright red, tear-streaked face. I sit down and hide underneath my desk, pop another half-a-Clozaril tablet that I try not to choke back up (I’m still hyperventilating so hard I could vomit), and bury my face in my arms. “Adam?” I look up. “Ezra.” I am barely composed, still hyperventilating, swiping at my eyes furiously and futilely. I look away, and I hope maybe he’ll think I’m just sick. I expect him to walk away, pretend that he never saw me like this and just silently let it color his perception of me. But he comes and sits down next to me underneath the desk. I don’t know what to say. “Do you want me to go?” he asks, after a moment. “You don’t have to.” I don’t want to admit it, but I don’t really want him to. Nobody else is this understanding with me anymore. I keep trying to collect myself, barely noticing at first when he puts his hand on my shoulder. “Do you need anything?” I shake my head, still not making eye contact. Theoretically, I’m getting the help I need, and maybe I do need the support of a friend right now too, but I don’t want to trouble him. Besides, I must look pathetic, cowering under a table and weeping, almost comically vulnerable. Hm. “Ezra,” I turn to him, finally, after a few more minutes of whimpering. I know my eyes look crazy, bloodshot to hell. “Can you take me to a mic?” “A mic?” “Yes. A standup mic. I want to see what it’s like.” “Really?” he smirks. “Yes, why not?” I can’t think of the last time I laughed, at least not genuinely. I can’t think of the last time I let myself. My self-loathing has become entirely unfunny, my psyche and my job both absolute nightmares, not to mention the actual nightmares—I need something light. Something just a little bit light. “You would… enjoy that?” “Yeah.” It makes me sad that he seems surprised, though I can’t blame him. I’ve been awfully serious, not even just for the past week or month, but probably since my dad died last spring. He reads my disappointment. “Sorry, Adam, I just… do you like comedy?” “I don’t know. My therapist laughs at my jokes sometimes.” He smiles at that, and I smile too, through dissipating tears. “Well, if you really want to, yeah. The next one is Thursday night.” I nod and take a deep breath. I realize Ezra hasn’t taken his hand off my shoulder, and he is absent-mindedly rubbing circles into my back. Maybe it’s stupid, but I stay as still as I can. I don’t want him to notice that he’s doing it and stop. “Is everyone there funny?” I ask, just to keep his focus. It’s a dumb question. I rephrase myself, “How funny is everyone?” He exhales a chuckle. “Honestly? About thirty people go up every night, sometimes more. They’re mostly shit. Don’t worry, though, there’s plenty to laugh at with the shitty ones.” He proceeds to tell me about the guys who show up high every time and just get up on stage and talk about nonsense (or weed itself) for 5 minutes, the wannabe Dangerfields and Seinfelds and Mulaneys who “never actually managed to glean what joke structure is” (though to be fair, It’s not like I have either), even the bigoted old men still trying with unflinching determination to resurrect “get back in the kitchen” jokes. I am losing myself in his stories, feeling at least marginally more relaxed, when Carlisle appears in my doorway. Ezra takes his hand off my back. Carlisle glances at us with confusion and disgust. “Dr. Collins, if you would please… get up and come see me in my office.” “We’re actually grading papers right now,” Ezra shoots back, in a tone of voice that says “yes, I think you’re stupid.” “Take a break, please,” Carlisle replies, glaring and exiting. I look hesitantly at Ezra, before getting up to follow him. “I do want to come,” I say. “To a mic.” “We’ll talk more later. I should still be here after you’re done facing the wrath of god.” I know I’m about to get chewed out to an extreme degree. Still, I can’t help but grin back at him.

[ivytenebrae]

Health And Life Update

Hi loves

I’ve been promising some updates on my current situation so I thought I would make a quick post to write about what has been going on recently. This may explain why I’m quieter than usual and have had less time to be online.

Basically, a lot has been going on behind the scenes I don’t usually speak about for fear of being depressing or weak. But I do want to try to be more open and honest, these illnesses are not just affecting me but others too and they are not well known.

As most of you know I’ve been trying since October 2018 to get reinstated on my life saving medication after a London doctor withdrew me from her clinic and abruptly stopped treatment without warning. Since then she refused to communicate with any of my local doctors and I have been fighting constantly to get seen by the right person. I have a very rare autoinflammatory disease which takes a lot of strong medicine to control. London had some very specific test results which other centres do not do and they haven’t been forthcoming in releasing information my GP needed to make decisions in my best interests for care. Since that treatment had been removed things have been on the decline, recently my symptoms became far more serious. It was just discovered by a very helpful one in a million doctor (who I was referred to by total chance when my last consultant left) that the ulceration and inflammation in my bowel had returned worse than before. Even the colonoscopy was difficult to perform, I collapsed on the way in to theatre and ended up on a trolley waking up in a resus bed. They almost didn’t finish the test, but I begged so I could perhaps know something about the extent of what is going on inside of me. The pain has been unbearable and I have even needed IV iron infusions for the amount of blood loss I’m experiencing.

I then started once again being unable to swallow solid food and experiencing regular choking episodes (anyone who has known me for a while knows how long it took to get back to eating normally again after the last bout of illness… it was about 2 years). This has been devastating. It came to a point where I was waiting for an ENT specialist for over four months and something had to be done. It has been over a month now of only having bits of complan drinks to sustain me and then a week and half of that without any food at all due to sheer pain of trying to get anything thicker than water down. Last week I went privately to see a consultant who performed a scope down my nose and found severe ulceration and inflammation from both nostrils down through the post nasal space and going as far as by my voice box and windpipe. It’s a very scary situation to be in. Obviously this didn’t come cheap, but it was necessary to know how far the disease has spread to build the case of staying on the long term treatment I need.

A week last Thursday night I had a major flare up with difficulty breathing, a heart rate of over 170 and extremely high blood pressure. My body was burning, cold fire, the bottom half of my lungs would not expand without excruciating pain. I was put in a high dependency bed and was hooked up to all sorts of wires and monitors. I have been started on an aggressive month long treatment of a very high dose of steroids and doubled immunosuppressants. I am hoping this will return me back to some kind of normality.

I have not long moved house, which was another thing that caused a lot of stress (a lot of people know the details of that nightmare with the ex landlord). The new house has been a godsend, but unfortunately at home there was a pipe burst right as I came out of hospital which has been more stress.

I still want to and am carrying on working. I have taken on some extra work but I am now not in the position to do much more, my everyday work modeling is already difficult under the current health circumstances and even more work is impossible when I’m already supposed to be on bed rest. (Modeling has been something I realise I am so lucky to do, flexible work through this illness has been my only real option other than giving up and I do not want to do that. I used to work in law, I had a whole career change due to this illness, but I am grateful for the opportunities I have had). The costs of medical bills are partly why I am adding a few extras to the store on this site which is here

I hope this does not come across as a sob story, it is a blip in my journey. I am lucky on the whole that I have survived through this far, it’s still a pretty harrowing experience and the drugs are going to take a while to get me back on track. I have had days where I have literally begged for the end, anything to make the pain stop. Painkillers only do so much and the absolute terror of not knowing which part will flare up next (the places noted on here are only a tiny portion of what is affected by this systemic disease) I thought I could not face it. I’ve had such an outpouring of love and support from you all and honestly with that and the three main people close to me in life getting me to hospital, I am getting through.

I’m on the right medications, this current situation will hopefully pass soon. There is hope now and that is way more than I have had in years.

If you made it through all of that, thanks for sticking with it. If you want to read more about rare illnesses please check the https://www.raredisease.org.uk site out.

Love and hugs

Ivy x

from Health And Life Update

[mybumpbirthandbeyond]

Eyes Forward

Where to start…the last few months have been true to form in this journey – an absolute rollercoaster. Finally, it felt like things were starting to be more positive than negative. My surgery was booked for January; I had an additional bonus session to look forward to with Gráinne when she was over in Scotland running a course; and although training wasn’t consistent, I was still getting back into it. 

To say it was surreal to enter a room full of physios I had never met and have some of them immediately say they were following me on Instagram, is an understatement. It was completely unexpected, and I felt like a bit of an imposter. Sharing my journey online has meant I don’t tend to meet the people following in person. When I do, I’m usually a bit lost for words. I was actually really nervous for some reason. Thank goodness the process of being scanned by Gráinne is something I’m more than used to by now – it just doesn’t normally happen with an audience live at the time. Thankfully, everything looked good, and the hard work is hopefully paying off. 

At one point I had a couple of the participants scan me. One quizzed me on how often I exercised. I didn’t like to say, “not as much as I’d like,” so I said I aimed for 3 times per week. I wasn’t sure what was coming next, but to hear someone who wasn’t my own physio say, “you have good muscle mass”, made me feel relieved. Not for one minute do I think Gráinne and Antony would tell me something just because I want to hear it (because they wouldn’t and I wouldn’t want them to), but it just meant I was on track and hopefully putting myself in a good place for post-op recovery.  

When another lovely physio stepped up and told me they, “weren’t used to scanning athletes,” I had to do everything possible not to fall off the bed in shock. I felt like looking round the room to see who they were talking to, because they couldn’t possibly mean me 😂🙈 I know they say if you move your body, you’re an athlete, but for me, ‘athlete’ is a term I attribute to someone much fitter and much stronger than me. That term felt far too generous for me 🙈

I was struck by how lucky the patients are to have physios that I met that day. I have always considered myself lucky, but it was such a privilege to meet so many others willing to go above and beyond for their patients. 

The following week, I caught the flu. Of course I did - there isn’t an illness this year that I haven’t caught at this point. Despite having the flu jab, I was absolutely floored and even now, three weeks on, I’m still completely congested. There goes my training…AGAIN. I missed my work Christmas lunch and gym Christmas awards night as a result. My husband flew solo that night but returned with an award for me. I was completely speechless. An award for ‘Recognition of Overcoming Adversity.’ Talk about bawling 😭 I had asked Alex to film the awards because I wanted to see who won what – I never in a million years expected to be one of the recipients. Alex had to collect it on my behalf so it meant he didn’t catch all of what was said, but what he did catch will stay with me for a long time: “This is a bit of a strange one, in that this person doesn’t see it as a limitation. She doesn’t let it stop her, and she just works really hard…” 

If there was ever an indication that I had picked the right gym to start my CrossFit journey, that was it. The fact that my coaches understand completely how I feel about my diastasis, and how I want to be treated, means everything. I never wanted to be that person using my diastasis as an excuse, and I sure as hell never wanted it to stop me doing anything. Thanks to my physios, and thanks to the incredibly understanding and supportive coaches, it doesn’t. I feel so lucky to be part of Strengthlab and I know I’m in the best hands returning to CrossFit post-op. 

Luckily, I was well enough to travel to Dublin for my pre-op surgical consult. The weekly countdown I had set on my phone was now well down to single figures and all I feel at this point is excitement. I cannot wait. The feeling of walking into my surgeon’s office, knowing that the next time would be THE time, was indescribable. If I could bottle it, I would.  

Ahead of my pre-op surgical consult, I rewatched the April consult when I visited Gráinne’s clinic. That was the appointment I had the month following my initial surgical consult. I wanted to refer back to the measurements I gave in March and provide the updated ones from April, if needed. Whilst I had a further consult in September in person with Gráinne and with Antony online, the measurements hadn’t changed so there was no quantitative update. There were still subtle changes found; but those were more to do with: how the linea alba looked, increased muscle bulk and the lack of a definitive semi lunaris, (which suggested that the separation which existed there previously, was no longer visible).


In that consult, we spoke a lot about the fact that I somehow knew there would be changes, but that that made it that much harder to accept the lack of improvement of the aesthetics. Once function was taken care of, aesthetics was all that was left and that was where I was struggling. Struggling to understand why, struggling to see any change, struggling to find motivation.

Antony and Gráinne understood where I was coming from, but even they couldn’t provide definitive answers. This is the unknown- it may have been down to the tissues being stretched too much. It may have been down to something else. That was frustrating. The truth is though, even if there was a definitive answer, would it really have placated me? Knowing that it was just my luck in the genetic lottery; or for some other reason that I couldn’t change; would that really have helped?


Antony was still hopeful at that point and I understand why. We don’t know what we don’t know. I wasn’t prepared for what he did say however: “If you just said I’m going to have an operation in a year and I’m going to do nothing (I know you’re not) - what you have done is nothing short of amazing. You have put yourself in the best possible situation to find out if things are going to change”

But it wasn’t to be. No matter how much I did or how hard I worked, those changes never came. It left me in some very dark places and really struggling to get out.

Watching that back the night before my pre-op consult - in a completely different place mentally - I’m not ashamed to admit my eyes welled up for a minute. It was the very stark reminder of how far I’ve come even from 8 months before, never mind the whole 3 and half years. That I have done absolutely everything humanly possible, and I could not have done any more. I was already at peace with getting surgery, and I knew I couldn’t have done any more, but hearing it again just reinforced it. It was like a message that was being sent, telling me that no matter what happens over the next few weeks, I don’t have to worry about that part of it. I’ve done my part and done it well. 

The consult increased my excitement levels. Aside from some specific questions around the surgery itself, I was ready to say let’s do it now! 😂 But that was no different to my first consult in March. There is no doubt in my mind that recovery will be tough, both physically and mentally. However, there is also no doubt that I have the best possible team of my surgeon, physios, and coaches, to get me through the next and final stage. I feel incredibly lucky in that regard. 

My emotions are, understandably, all over the place at the moment. I think that is in large part, down to relief. This is almost over, and I don’t have to live like this for much longer. I’m literally counting the days and I’m just excited for what’s to come.


I never knew what rehab would look like the first time. I just approached it in the same way I approach everything. Although this recovery and rehab will be unlike any I have experienced yet; I’m going into this final chapter the same way: with dedication; hard work; determination; and grit…plenty of grit.

Whilst there will be other Instagram posts in the lead up, this feels like the last blog post until I am post-op. Thank you to those who take the time to read. It means the world and I couldn’t have ever imagined anyone would read them. To hear that my posts help women in the same position, that’s just…I can’t put into words what that means and how overwhelming that is to hear.  To all of you who have been there to support, I will never be able to express my gratitude enough. Thank you ❤️ 

[chronicallyinspiredx-blog]

how it all started...

I started my period around age 13, and from my very first period, it lasted around 9 days and it was heavy, i remember having to change every 2/3 hours during school, and i also even leaked through during PE which was extremely embarrassing. My periods used to make me nauseous, and i felt faint and lightheaded, back then i didn’t understand any of it, I just thought i was being a drama queen, because it was all new to me. And my Mam always used to say to me “Come on, every girl in the entire world has a period, you can’t have days off school every month” So i dismissed everything I felt, it was normal... apparently.  By age 16, I remember one period in particular, i was in AGONY. Sweating up, so dizzy i could barely walk, and this went on for 3 or so days at the very start of my period. I was so heavy i was bleeding through a pad and tampon every hour and a half. At the time i did have a boyfriend, young i know... but I was sexually active. And my Mam scared me half to death saying it seemed like i was having an ectopic pregnancy, and started saying how id need surgery, id be super ill in hospital. Spent days sobbing in excruciating pain thinking i was pregnant and going to die, but the pain started to fade out, and the bleeding got lighter, i eventually came off my period.  So then i realised, well it would have been impossible to be an ectopic pregnancy so what could it be. I never ever thought anything of it. From then on i got the Depo Injection, and my periods disappeared, it was GREAT. 

Fast forward to age 18, still on the depo injection. I gained a whole lot of weight on it, around 8 stone to be precise, and the doctors said it wasn’t possible for the injection to make me gain that much weight. But i wasn’t eating any different, and i was doing the same amount of exercise, if not more... I played basketball at university level, i trained twice a day, some times 3, yet i had gone from 14 stone to 22. I decided to come off the injection due to the weight gain, it also hadn’t helped very much with my mental health. I had suffered low mood/depression since age 14/15 and it had progressively got worse this time. I had suicidal thoughts, i self harmed, i just genuinely did not see a purpose for me, there was no reason for me to be alive anymore.  Age 19, i had been off the injection for around a year now, and lucky me!! Still no period. I began wondering, when would my periods come back. About 2 weeks after it had hit the year mark, i began bleeding, medium flow. I was changing around every 4 hours, it was manageable, i had cramps but nothing i couldn’t manage. I would take paracetamol and it would take the pains away.  Fast forward 9 months, 2 weeks... still bleeding, over the months it got heavier and heavier. There wasn’t one single day i hadn’t bled. I definitely needed shares in Tampax by this point! Over this time i had been to A&E on 3 occasions with abnormally heavy bleeding, but all they ever did was check my blood count, i wasn’t suffering from Anemia so they told me to wait it out, see if the bleeding stopped on its own. It was called ‘Breakthrough Bleeding’ and this was due to me missing all those periods on the injection. The lining of my womb had started shedding and didn’t know how to stop itself. The bleeding got heavier again, i went to my local walk in centre, and the nurse timed 7 minutes, for me to bleed through a super tampon and a night pad... 7 minutes!! I was also passing clots the size of my hand... Something was up! I got sent straight to A&E again, expecting to be told to go home. I got admitted that night, i spent 4 nights/5 days in hospital. They put it down to a burst cyst, I found out that day i had PCOS, i was told the severity of the cysts on both ovaries would make it very hard for me to conceive children without medical assistance, i was heart broken. I was sent home with tablets called Tranexemic Acid to stop the bleeding, and Norethisterone which stopped and started your periods as and when you took them. After 5 days on those pills, the bleeding stopped. However i was so badly Anaemic, I had no energy at all to even be excited by this. I was on Norethisterone for 3 weeks, then a break for my period. In this time i had searched up something called Endometriosis. EVERY SINGLE SYMPTOM i had matched this. I thought this is great, all i have to do is bring this up next time i see my GP... If only it was that easy. I came off the Norethisterone and found the pain getting worse and worse, the bleeding heavier and heavier. All over again. I couldn’t cope with this, back to A&E. I was sent home instantly... told to come back if the pain got any worse. By 27 hours later, i was barely conscious, the pain had drained me. I went back to A&E and i was admitted again, to get the pain under control... Morphine was my life saver that night. 2 gynaecologist doctors came to see me on that morning, they said there was no reason for me to be in this much pain, maybe i just have a low pain threshold... i was gobsmacked... i brought up my worries about Endometriosis due to my Mams recent hysterectomy, she’d unknowingly had Endo the whole time without realising or having any symptoms. The doctor burst into fits of laughter, nudging the other doctor and she continued to laugh with him. “You’re far too young to have Endometriosis, thats a ridiculous suggestion, you have been using the internet too much. People who are 30+ get endometriosis” then the lady doctor chips in “Why don’t you get pregnant and have a baby, then you wont have periods and you wont have this mystery pain you’re getting” I asked them to leave and i burst into tears. Not only because i was so embarrassed for myself, but i was on a ward with 7 other people, who all heard the conversation. Humiliated with an audience...  From then i had 8 more appointments with Gynae, 4 more hospital admissions. A whole lot of crying and begging for a diagnostic laparoscopy. Until one caring and empathetic consultant finally gave in and signed consent for me to have it. I was put on a waiting list for surgery hopefully within 6 months, 

[clionasjourney-blog]

MY JOURNEY: The Beginning

To whom it may concern,

I have decided to begin a blog that tells the story of my trials and tribulations with Mental Health and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. There are a number of reasons why I have chosen to embark on this task, from spreading awareness of these monstrous illnesses, to simply venting when I am struggling. I hope you will find this useful to yourself, as I am hoping that by sharing my experiences with you, you will feel less alone and isolated when battling with your own demons. To begin this journey I will start by telling you a bit about myself, so if you're sitting comfortably, lets begin…

My “journey” began when I was in Year 8 at Secondary School (aged 13) as I was facing a lot of difficult challenges at home and at school. After a while this started to impact on my mental health and I was referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), a service for children up to the age of 18, and this is where everything began to take a turn for the worse. For the next 6 years I began battling with my Mental Health and even with the help of a team of psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers, I was deteriorating rapidly. I was firstly placed on a programme of counselling in my local centre for CAMHS, which soon turned into a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). However despite me attending weekly sessions, my health did not improve and so it was deemed necessary to start me on a course of medications - a combination of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and sleeping tables. Since then, I have rotated around a number of different combinations of medications at a number of different dosages.

In February 2017 I was admitted to my first CAMHS inpatient unit under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act of 1983. Little did I know that this was going to be the start of a string of hospital admissions, A&E trips and further Sections. This admission was in the middle of my first year of A - Levels and so I struggled with keeping up my studies as well as trying to mend my body and my mind. After 7 months inpatient, I was discharged just in time for my 18th birthday, however living in the community didn't last for very long and I soon ended up back in hospital.

This time however it was different, as I had turned 18, I was now placed on an adult ward. Of all my units that I have had the misfortune of being on, this one was the worst, I was constantly on 1:1 support - where a member of staff is at arms length from you at all times (this is particularly demeaning when you need to use the bathroom), I began to struggling with what rapidly turned into my Anorexia Nervosa and as well as this, my sleeping became more disjointed and despite having slept for 15 + hours I was still exhausted. Having been admitted for severe self harm with suicidal ideology, along with a whole host of other symptoms, I received my worst diagnosis to date, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) also known as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD). When I was discharged from this unit 4 months later, I was labelled with this horrible illness that since has taken what normal life I had left away from me.

During this ‘free’ time, I lived in a shared house for people with mental illnesses and learning disabilities, where I made friends and began to become re-accustomed to what can only be described as ‘civilian life’. However once again, after being discharged, I barely managed Christmas and New Year before being re-admitted to my local psychiatric unit. This was preceded by a number of trips to A&E and being placed on numerous 136 Sections by Police. Once again I was placed on a Section 3 and I ended up back in the system that I whole heartedly detest. By this crisis point, my mental health became worse that ever with my symptoms increasing as one of my symptoms is to cease taking medications as I detest thinking that I need them. I was back on 1:1 with a bedroom with only a mattress and pillow and spent weeks in rip-proof clothing for my own safety. However, after a month it was deemed that the ward I was on was not suitable for my needs and that I would soon be moved to an Open Rehabilitation Centre. This placement would be one that is considerably longer than any i had pre This was one of the scariest moments for me as I was informed that the unit I would be moving to is a 4 hour drive from my hometown and subsequently  wouldn't be seeing my friends or family that often.

Despite having a very tricky move, from being handcuffed by police, to travelling in the back of an ambulance with restraints on, I arrived at my new unit in March 2018. However as I was so ill, my brain has erased a number of memories from my first few months here. I went from a shy, timid schoolgirl to what can only be described as a ‘vocal, distressed, patient’. I was being injected on an almost daily basis with sedatives and I was being threatened with a move to another PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit). However after regaining some strength and getting my eating disorder to a decent stage of physical health, I began what really I can call my journey to recovery. This journey would be by no means easy or short and I would have to face a number of problems such as Depression and Anxiety, BPD, PTSD and atypical Anorexia Nervosa. Since then, I have had a number of relapses and stages that I thought that I would never recover from but I now know I'm at least in the right place for treatment. However, even though I am now on the path to good health I have also had to fight my corner to be heard sometimes with regards to my illnesses. Since the age of 16, i have struggled with unexplained aches and pains, as well as extreme fatigue that doesn't improve with rest. This when coupled with other symptoms such as migraines is known as “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’. I had known that I have CFS for a number of months before I received a diagnosis of it as my current consultant just blamed medication and its side effects, so after a long battle I managed to get my voice heard and explain my side of the story. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome effects me in a lot of different ways, but the main problem i face is extreme fatigue that is worsened by any sort of exercise and does not improve with any amount of sleep. I can rest all day and sleep more than 12 hours a night and still wake up with my body feeling like lead. My joints ache for no apparent reason and once again are worsened by exercise.

In late September, i had my Section 3 renewed for another 6 months which now means I will spend Christmas here in hospital but I will visit my family on Boxing Day hopefully. It is now November and I have been in rehab for nearly 9 months but I must say they've been the most productive 9 months of my life. I really feel like I am finally improving, yes I may be taking numerous medications and having psychology on a nearly daily basis along with occupational therapy but I feel like I am improving and also becoming more independent. Hopefully I will continue to look positively at my journey and keep you up to date in the meantime…

[ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes]

Keep My Heart Part 3

                       It was around ten o’clock and I was standing in Logan Airport baggage claim. I clutched my purse strap around my shoulder and took a breath. I was excited to see Chris but nervous at the same time.

           Waiting until the weekend wasn’t easy. It felt like I was battling two parts of myself and neither was making any headway. I wanted nothing more than to talk face to face with my newfound friend but I still didn’t want to unload my burden on him.

           When I looked up, my worries faded for a moment. I saw Chris walking towards me with a bright smile. His blue eyes were sparkling and the way he looked at me made my knees go weak.

           “Hey,” He said softly and set his bag down. The smile never left his face as he stood in front of me.

           “This might be weird to say, but I missed you.” I blurted.

           He chuckled. “That’s how I feel too. C’mon,” He touched my shoulder. We walked out to the curb. “Did you take a cab?” He asked.

           I nodded. “So you want to hang out tomorrow morning?” I asked hopefully.

           “Yeah, of course. I actually got us reservations for breakfast if that’s okay. It’s not too fancy, I just thought, since it’s a Saturday we should plan ahead.” He smiled sheepishly.

           “You’re so sweet,” I said and felt my cheeks going red. He had planned ahead, he was looking forward to this.

           Chris chuckled and went to hail a cab. “We can share one, I’ll pay.” He offered to take my purse even though he was already carrying a duffle bag and a backpack.

           “You don’t have to. I don’t mind splitting it.” It was something else I was worried about. I knew it was traditionally a courtesy for a man to pay for dates and such. But I had been on more than enough dates where I split the bill. I was perfectly capable of handling my own expenses. I had a good office job and although most of my paycheck went towards insurance copays and other medical expenses, I could live comfortably.

           But Chris was an actor and a well-known one at that. I didn’t know how much he made and I didn’t really want to know. All I knew for sure was that I would feel uncomfortable if he paid for everything. It was another pity strategy that a lot of people used. After first dates, if guys knew about my illness, they insisted on paying for everything. My mom called to ask if I needed help with bills, my friends wanted to buy me clothes…I hated it. I went through weeks and months of stress and pain to get where I was in my career. I did this so I wouldn’t have to beg for money from people. I liked being independent.

           It seemed like Chris could sense my discomfort with the notion. “Alright, we can do that.” He nodded. When a cab pulled up to the curb, he opened the door for me and let me in first.

           I gave the driver my address and Chris did the same. We sat in silence for the first minute of the drive. I assumed that we were both trying to process the idea that we were finally together again.

           I yawned and he glanced over at me. “Tired?”

           “Not really, I just had a long day at work,” I admitted.

           “Well, thanks for coming to meet me here.” He smiled. “I know I would’ve had a hard time waiting until the morning to see you.”

           I blushed even more and had to look down. I had a hard time looking him right in the eyes. I worried that if I did I would lose my train of thought and babble like an idiot. “I don’t think I could’ve waited either.” I bit my tongue and forced myself to look at him. I did my best to keep my composure.

           He met my eyes and neither of us could get any words out for the briefest moment. He swallowed. “I almost forgot how beautiful you were.” The words slipped out and hung in the air.

           My lips parted slightly and felt my stomach knot up from all the butterflies dancing around. “Chris…”

           “Sorry, wow that was super crossing the line.” His face went red and he rubbed the back of his neck.

           I reached over and took his hand. I didn’t say anything else; I just let him weave his fingers with mine. His skin was warm and soft as he gently squeezed my hand.

           At breakfast the next day, I met up with him outside the restaurant. He smiled when we caught sight of each other. I wanted to tell him how I felt when I saw those blue eyes and gorgeous smile. But I didn’t want to come on too strong even if he had called me beautiful the night before.

           I hadn’t been able to sleep much; I kept going over the interaction in my head. The way he looked at me and the words that he said out loud. It made my heart beat faster every time I replayed the memory.

           “Hey.” He said softly and opened one arm up for a hug.

           I didn’t even hesitate; I had been waiting for that moment. I let myself be enveloped in possibly the best hug I’d ever received. He was much bigger than me, height and muscle wise, and I almost got lost in his embrace. The scent of his cologne and the warmth coming from his chest was intoxicating and I swore I was going to pass out.

           Luckily, I stayed on my feet and withdrew reluctantly from his arms. I looked up at him and once again, we couldn’t speak as our eyes met.

           Chris was the first to snap back into reality. “Did you look at the menu yet?” He cleared his throat and opened the door for me.

           “Yeah, it all looks really good.” I walked inside and stood by him as he spoke to the host about the reservation.

           We sat down by the window and I took off my sweater. “How was your flight? I didn’t even ask last night.” I realized.

           “It was good. I think everyone was pretty much asleep so it was quiet.” He nodded and eyed the menu for a moment. “Did you sleep well?” He asked just like he did every morning when we texted.

           “Yeah.” I lied. I didn’t want him to know that I was obsessing over how he called me beautiful. “Did you?”

           “Sort of.” He shrugged and set the menu down. “I was thinking about what I said last night.”

           I felt my stomach sink a little. Was he going to take back what he said? Was it a mistake? “Oh?”

           “I just…I didn’t want to cross any boundaries between us. I really consider you a friend and I don’t want to force you into something that you wouldn’t…I don’t want to ruin anything between us.” He said. It sounded a little rehearsed but along the way, he got caught up in his words.

           “Chris, you’re not forcing me into anything,” I assured him. “If I felt uncomfortable I would tell you. And I wouldn’t have come today.” I pointed out. “I thought…” I cleared my throat and tried to think of the best way to express my feelings. “It was very sweet, what you said. I don’t think anyone has ever said something like that before.” I admitted.

           “Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “I sort of figured you were already seeing someone.” He said honestly.

           “Even still?” We’d been talking for weeks and neither of us had said anything about dating anyone.

           “Well…” He shrugged. “It’s just crazy that no one has tied you down yet.”

           “I’m not very easy to tie down.” I smiled slightly.

           “Is that a challenge?” He teased, his eyes sparkling playfully.

           “I guess it’s up to you, Evans,” I replied and again felt my heart racing.

           He shook his head and rested his hand on the table, palm up. “I wouldn’t want to tie you down. You’re too good for that.”

           I reached over and took his hand just like I did the night before. I wasn’t sure what else I could say. “So…do you want to keep seeing me?” I asked shyly.

           He looked surprised that I was even asking at all. “Of course. I mean…it’s not always easy because I need to travel a lot. But, if you’re willing to put up with that for a bit…”

           “I don’t mind,” I said without really consulting with myself. I figured it would be hard to date an actor. But I wanted to hang on to Chris as much as I could. I knew I would much rather wait to see him than not see him ever again.

           “Are you sure? I mean your health…”

           “It’s not an issue.” I brushed off his concern like always.

           “But should I know more about it so I’m…more aware of everything?” For once, he didn’t back off right away.

           I looked down at our entwined hands. “We could talk about it,” I said slowly. “But I don’t want you freaking out or acting like I’m on my deathbed,” I warned.

           “Of course not, I know you handle everything. I just don’t want to do or say something wrong.”

           “Okay.” I nodded and started to understand where he came from. “We can talk about it. Just not right now. Maybe tonight, if you wanted to get dinner.” I relented.

           He looked relieved and smiled. “Thank you.” He said and squeezed my hand. “That means a lot to me.”

           I met his eyes again and felt the same relief. I realized I could be honest about how I felt. And I could tell him how much I worried about what he was getting himself into when he chose me.

[aziraphaleandcrowley]

God I just want to vent somewhere. Lots of medical stuff, period and blood mentions, discussion about being in hospital yada yada you’ve been warned. You don’t need to read this I’m just fed up and want to dump this somewhere before I end up eventually crying about it or some shit.

Long term solution to lighten my periods. We agree that I’ll finish the 21 day course of tablets to lighten my period I’m currently on then start taking the pill. Whilst I try and collect the pill I try and get hold of these other tablets and still the pharmacy hasn’t received a prescription. I go back to reception where they again take my details and promise they’ll look into it. I have two days of meds left at this point which I’ve made extremely clear. The next day I try again and nothing has changed. The receptionist asks me to ring in the morning to get an appointment and I ask how I can do that as last time 2 hours waiting in the queue got me no where. She says she shouldn’t, but she take my details and says she’ll ring me in the morning to try and get me an appointment. In the morning she rings, there’s no appointments left. She says she’ll ring in the afternoon. She doesn’t. I go back to reception and explain again. I have one tablet left at this point. I get told the prescribing lady is there but as there is no record of this medication being prescribed and I’m at risk of blood clots, which is a side effect of the med, she can’t prescribe it without consulting a doctor. She sends an instant message to the doctor and I’m told I will be called back in the afternoon with an update. I’m not. I go back to reception in the evening and ask if there’s an update. There’s not. I’m told all I can do is ring in the morning. I can’t, as I’m working and I can’t sit on hold for hours whilst working in a shop. I go back to reception the next morning at 10am as soon as I’ve finished work. The doctors finally have received my hospital notes and reception allows me to put in an urgent medication request to which the earliest I would receive the medication is 5pm, meaning I’d miss two doses of the medication. The receptionist tells me to ask the pharmacist to see if she can prescribe a couple of meds to tide me over. The pharmacist tells me that she’s not allowed to, and she sends me back to reception to get me to tell the receptionist that she’s not allowed and that the receptionist should stop suggesting that to patients. I’m told to ring the pharmacy at 5pm to check that my prescription is there, and to ring the prescribing line if not. At 4pm I get a phone call to tell me that the medication won’t be prescribed, and if I want to dispute why that is I’ll need to yet again ring up in the morning to speak to a clinician. By tomorrow it’s too late as I’d have missed 3 does of the medication and am instead going to start taking the pill.

So basically I battled with the doctors to get an appointment in the first place and didn’t get one.

Was fobbed off by my urgent care doctor.

Was treated very well in hospital.

Have an amazing consultant.

Only got the pill cos I made an appointment weeks ago

And have pointlessly chased trying to get a medication for 10 days, involving an email, 3 phone calls, and 6 visits each to both the doctors and the pharmacy, just to not be prescribed the tablets I need to finish the course I was prescribed in hospital. In the paperwork for that medication it says that I should have a period-like bleed around 3 days after stopping the medication. I know the pill which I will start taking tonight will help lighten and potentially stop my period, but this still means that in three days I could be bleeding again, just 14 days after my last bleed, which I still haven’t completely recovered from - I’m still anemic and my resting heart rate is still 10bpm above normal, though decreasing everyday. Even though this period should be lighter, it’s still kinda a gut punch to have to bleed again so quickly.

I just really don’t want to end up back in hospital again :(

We still don’t know what caused my pulmonary embolism, though I’m going for a blood test next week to hopefully look into it, so we don’t know how long ill have to take blood thinners for. I didn’t ask for this, but it feels like a constant battle just for the most basic to things. If they won’t prescribe me this med then I’ll just have to deal with it, but why couldn’t this have been told to me a week ago, rather than today after I’ve already run out of meds. If my consultant could get my hospital notes the day or day after I was released from hospital then why couldn’t my doctors surgery? I’ve wasted so much time and effort chasing this medication for absolutely nothing, and I’m just really fed up that I could be dealing with these and related issues for many years to come :(

it just takes so much mental energy to deal with. I was feeling good again before my period from hell, I’d had a week off work where I’d got my life together, I’d contacting the course leader of the uni course I wanna do, my haemoglobin levels were basically back to normal so anaemia wasn’t making me feel tired, and now I feel physically fine again, not perfect, but fine, but mentally not fine. I can’t be bothered for the uni stuff, and I’m even thinking about the one single week I’d actually have to attend uni as part of a distance course as a what if I’m bleeding and end up in hospital in an unknown place already which is Fun, when this wouldn’t be til September/October at the earliest. Fanfic is kinda boring me slightly (the fics are GREAT, I’m just not in the right headspace to really appreciate them). I can’t be bothered to watch stuff. I’m tired cos I’m working early shifts at work and aren’t getting enough sleep cos of it. Just ugh. The only good thing is that work is flying by and I’m getting to do stuff I like doing rather than slogging through putting stock on shelves for hours on end.

Why is it always one step forward, 2 steps back? Feel better mentally and physically than I have in months, followed by worst period of my life leading to the worst physical health I’ve ever had. God.

Gonna stop now and try and do something semi fun/enjoyable/interesting rather than keep dwelling on this shit show. Wish me a light period, folks 🤣