Life | Love, Death & Sickness

WARNING: I don’t usually do this, but I felt the need to include this little warning for anyone who can be triggered by the events that have happened recently. It involves a death of a beloved pet.

Hello!

This past month has been a freaking roller coaster! There were so many random things happen that were bad and good that they’re starting to blend together. For today’s post, we are going to go back to the very beginning of the chaos and weed out the special things that happened.

We start at the last day of March. It was a bittersweet kind of day for my whole family. I was able to get on the floor early in the day to go outside and visit with the cats, and after I came back inside I decided to hang out with my mom and ChiChi The last few days, Chichi had been feeling like crap. She was having issues breathing and my dad had noticed her heart was running a lot faster than normally, to the point where my mom was having to monitor with her nursing equipment. Anyways, while I was in the living room and actually leaning up against her “step” onto the couch and as I was doing it, the little dog decided to scare the crap out of me by coming out behind me and licking half of my face until she was ready to get down on the floor again.

She was enjoying lying on her blanket basking in the sun by the front door. I had been told to not play with her because of how she’d been feeling the past couple of days, so I gave her some of her toys and we enjoyed looking at our neighborhood for a little bit. After a few minutes, she decided that it was too hot and she curled up next to mom on the couch. After a few minutes I asked my mom to help me back on top of my bed, and then all hell broke loose. Chichi had collapsed at the bottom of her step and had a seizure, which resulted in my parents taking her to the vet immediately where they made the ultimate decision to put her to sleep so she didn’t have to suffer anymore.

The best thing about this story though was what happened when they arrived at the vet’s office. He was just about to close for the day and was probably looking forward to going home, but ChiChi wanted to make sure she left this world on her own terms. She tried to bite the bastard, so they had to put her in a muzzle but I have to say, I hope when it’s my time to go, I want the same amount of spunk in my veins to do something like that!

We are still healing after her loss. The house is definitely quieter without her high-pitched barks at the poor neighbors that enter the house or yard. I’ve had the operatic J. G. Wentworth commercial eight times and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve wanted to ask my parents where ChiChi is, and I know she can’t be anywhere on the couch because my mom doesn’t keep a blanket out for her. The food bowls and pee towels are put up and her step has been fixed to match with the rest of the couch. The only thing that is still out are her toys and none of us have dared to move them yet. I actually sleep with her blanket she used to soak up the sun to cover my feet at night.

Two days later, we left home to start our road trip to visit my mom’s side up north. We hadn’t seen anybody since late September I think. The drive went pretty good, we were unable to visit our favorite Starbucks in Martinsville because they were working on the road and GPS took us on another route that really messed with us. My brother-in-law Brandon was driving and I sat in the passenger seat with limited space for my legs and feet but as we reached Indy, Brandon and I were more than uncomfortable at that point. I had to literally remind the both of us to be patient as we attempted to shift positions in our seats. Our destination couldn’t arrive fast enough for us!

Once we got there, I heard Brandon’s back pop like four times. After my sister opened my door and removed the pillows that were shoved underneath my feet for the whole ride; I was so happy to bend my legs again and they were somewhat sore for like an hour later. As we went into my aunt and uncle’s house and hugged everyone, I was busy observing my nephew have an absolute blast with my Aunt Laurie and nana. He showed them his cars and played with Myla a couple of times too. It wasn’t long before we ate pizza and had even more family come over for the evening. My cousin Amy and her wife Danielle and their kids came over. Nolan had playmates and was thoroughly enjoying himself! He was a flirt and a mooch at the same time.

However, once we began nighttime, either we were delirious after the long day with driving, playing and talking our heads off, Nolan wanted nothing to do with sleeping and he became a complete goofball. We all slept in the living room and Nolan is used to having a fan and nightlight, and as we were inching towards sleep, he wanted to argue who he wanted to sleep with and at that point, we had the lights off but one cell phone light that shone brightly on the wall and Nolan was like Peter Pan and found his shadow and we just erupted with laughter! Suddenly everything he did in those couple of minutes were hilarious and I mean, I had tears coming out of my eyes and I knew I wasn’t the only one! Thankfully, he figured out the best position was in between his mom and dad and we all drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Laurie and Mike made breakfast of both cinnamon and orange rolls! It has become a great traditional and is the only time I get to have my favorite orange rolls because neither one of my parents like them!

On the agenda for that Saturday, once Uncle Rick came over the younger kids were going to hunt eggs all along the front yard and it was so precious to watch all three of them search for the eggs. Amy and Danielle had made Nolan special eggs and they were full of different goodies like candy (he likes gummies the most!) and little toys, but the most popular were the confetti eggs! He had so much fun and was sweet enough to share his treasures with his mommy, mimi, and his favorite bestie: Danielle.

After the eggs, we went back inside to have some lunch and I wasn’t able to eat very much but I figured it was because of the rolls I had a few hours ago. Now there was something very different about this visit, because Easter finally landed on my nana’s birthday. So, once most of the guests were finishing with their plates, the cake was brought out and it was so good! My Aunt Laurie made array of cupcakes in both carrot cake and vanilla batters. I had a vanilla cupcake and it was really good, but my eyes were still glued to my nana’s as it much larger than anyone else’s and I knew she would make it last for a while as she has her own freezer for this exact purpose! She’s smart like that but really, she just has a bad sweet tooth!

The next thing we did was make our way into the garage to paint Easter and spring-y scenes. My nana and I each had a different thing, she had this beautiful bumblebee windmill that she did very well on and I got this beautiful sign that is of a mason jar of flowers with the words “Hello Spring” at the bottom. I took my time on it, because I was working with something I don’t usually do and I am still shocked how good I was able to do the lettering, because I was going to have my sister do that part because she can do various things with this sort of thing but Danielle and I were the last ones to finish our masterpieces. I was thoroughly impressed with what I was able to do with it!

Unfortunately, I don’t remember a lot that happened after that. My uncle David made a late appearance and I remember seeing him and enjoying his voice and laughter again, and then I wanted to go on the couch and Nolan also went to lay down on the lounge chair on the opposite side of the living room, and we both passed out. I’ve been known to crash early but usually I show symptoms of it like crankiness or just being uncomfortable and since I was just painting and having a great time like not even 15 minutes before this, it was a bit of a shock for everyone. The next day I felt fine again but I just thought it was from the pain I had and took medicine for while in the garage that afternoon. We didn’t leave Sunday until probably noon but we hugged everyone and I made sure I had enough for any movement in my seat because I refused to be stuck in the same place for a 4 hour drive back home!

Sunday night, I felt pretty good overall. I allowed myself to relax and watch some TV, but honestly all I did was binge watch Criminal Minds on Netflix and had a good sleep that night. As far Monday, it was absolutely beautiful! I was able to go outside with my current Harry Potter book, journal, and camera to hang out with the cats on the deck. We have found out that sitting on a rug helps my bottom a lot especially for multiple hours! It has been somewhat odd to sit like on the wood without being in my wheelchair mainly because I am up close with our cats again and they are clearly loving this just as much as I am and really hope I get to continue to do this as we go into summertime!

And then, everything changed and time seemed to go faster than any other time, including the three day visit I just did basically, because the same day I have a steady knowledge of was the 7th of April 2021, after that, everything is a blur. In the matter of two days, I came down with the stomach flu. I hadn’t had it since possibly late 2008 or early 2009. In the thick of it though was probably the worst because I was so depressed as I was sick. I despise being sick in any form but stomach flu has to be the worst in my opinion because I was basically attached to my commode for 72 hours at best. I wouldn’t eat anything other than applesauce, popsicles, and ice cubes. I drank Gatorade and water like they were nothing and tried so many pills to make everything stop flowing out of my body. I was having to call my mom every 20 minutes or less and would have to call her in the middle of the night for the same reasons. It was so much and I just wanted out of there emotionally and mentally, and then as suddenly as it came into our house, it went away.

I have been extremely lucky at avoiding different sicknesses, except for what happened at the start of 2020. Other than that, I have not experienced anything else and I do not understand how it came about because we only had two other members come down with similar things but nothing was hardcore as mine. The first three days I started getting better, I was so hungry and would literally ask my mom if she was going to the store to look for this , this, and that. I would wake up in the middle of the night wanting food but as my body began to center again, the cravings subsided and I am not as worried about how much movement I do that could produce bad consequences for everyone!

Okay, I think I am finally done talking about everything. I hope everyone else was able to enjoy their Easter weekend and to anyone who has the stomach bug or who had it recently, I really hope you start to feel better sooner rather than later.

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A-Z Disability Challenge | F : Treat Your Friends In The Way You’d Want To Be Treated

I know I’ve said this for almost every post, but for today it is really important. The topic I will be discussing is how you should treat your disabled friends. I wish this was common sense, but I guess for some people, they lack knowing how to act while hanging out with a person with any kind of disability in both private and publicly!

I am purely basing this off of my own experiences I had while I was in school, because this was the time that I saw anybody outside of my family really making the conscious decision to really hang out with me outside of having a sleep over and of course, seeing each other in classes. This was also the point in my life that I realized that I was truly different than my “friends” because whenever I was around them, I made myself forget that I was disabled. I wanted to be like them so badly that I never felt accepted to be myself, so I wanted to write this post for both sides.

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I loved birthday parties! I enjoyed getting out of the house and spending time with my friends outside of school. Although, from the ages 7 to about 10, there wasn’t anything too major that we all did together. I never played spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven like most preteens did. Now whenever I had birthday parties and sleepovers, I was in a more controlled environment and everybody was basically forced to do what I wanted to do. After my 7th birthday and having over 20+ kids, that included a bunch of rowdy boys, came over to our house, I never had boys over ever. So, I never really had the chance to play spin the bottle like I really wanted to!

I think my favorite parties were over at Haley and Zack’s houses. I’ve been friends with both of them for YEARS! I met Haley in kindergarten, she was my first true friend and Zack’s grandparents lived really close to mine, so we’d see each other almost every other weekend. Anyways, I loved going to their parties. Whenever I would go over to Haley’s, we would be indoors, but when I was attending Zack’s, we were mostly outdoors, sitting by the bonfire, or at least I was. Both made sure to include me as best as they could, but there were a lot of things that they were doing that I knew I couldn’t do, so I felt conflicted a lot of the times, but whenever I’d get in that little funk, I’d end up talking to their families. I love both of their mothers, and whenever I see them, we’ll talk and hug each other!

Once we all got into high school, it was almost like, everybody was too uncool to have sleepovers. I had the hardest time finding people that wanted or had the time to sleep over at my house. I rarely slept at anybody’s house other than my friend Haley and with my cousin Kristi. There was a reason for this though, after I had my back surgeries I grew a lot both in height and weight,  in a short period of time, and it wasn’t until probably 2008 that I began to feel okay with somebody touching my back again. I was still pretty fragile by the time I hit middle school to the end of junior year of high school. This is why I only hung out at two people’s houses, because only two adults were really comfortable and basically took up the challenge to lift me up stairs, beds, couches, etc.

It wasn’t until the end of high school, were things really started to change. There is nothing like a broken heart, especially when it’s caused by your friends. Boys will come and go, but I think I cried more about not being to hang out with my friends. It was never like I wasn’t allowed to go out because my parents said so, it was the fact that nobody would do it. It wasn’t until my 18th birthday that I actually had a friend of mine, take me out. One person.

So, imagine the disappointment when I was told that I was going to get picked up to go out to eat with some friends and I never got a call or a text that said “they were right outside.” In that moment, I truly hated the body I was born in, because I thought if I wasn’t like this, I could be driving my own car, picking them up, and we’d be happy as clowns. Instead, I sat in my room permanently attached to my mom’s shoulder as the minutes trickled by and I received no messages.

It wasn’t until my mom basically said this is not right and packed us up, she texted my cousin Kristi to see if she wanted to go putt-putting that afternoon. While we were at a stop light, I got a text message from the same person I was supposed to be waiting on, asking if I was there already because they’d seen my mom’s car–still didn’t get the message that they were going to pick me up like they said–so I quickly realized that the whole thing was a big joke and that I got excited for no absolutely fucking reason! I know it’s been over 8 years, but I still feel somewhat hurt about this! Friends should never make you feel like that, ever! I can never literally look forward to anything because of this one outing that never happened. It’s okay though, my mom, sister, Kristi and I had fun at miniature golf anyways!

I do worry about these younger generation of disabled kids and teens, because I know how I was and how I dealt with my pain of never feeling like you are enough for roughly anybody. It wasn’t healthy and I know that now. It wasn’t until 2012, two years after I graduated from high school, that I truly began to really love myself for who I was. I started treating myself better! Unfortunately, I’m still not good at keeping up with my friendships, and it’s probably stemmed from this past experiences and other stuff. That’s why it’s highly important to always remember to treat your friends, whether they are able or disabled, like you would want to be treated.

The End.

Do you have any advice for the younger generations on how to treat other people? Were you ever put in the same situations? How did you make it out? Let me know!

My Lessons In Walking

It’s Throwback Thursday and I wanted to do something special for everybody. I’ve talked about this before but didn’t actually think we had pictures of it until my nana posted a few of these on her Facebook. Do you know I actually used a walker once in my life? It was years ago, but I did do it. When I was in the fourth grade I was at my wit’s end with myself about not being able to walk like my friends, so I talked my therapists and my family into letting me get a walker to do for a few sessions. I thought it was pretty cool to be into something that could possibly get me to walking on my feet like everybody else. On soft surfaces it was the easiest thing to move around and do whatever I wanted, but then after a while it was like swimming. Everything had an uncomfortable spot. If you’re butt wasn’t even on the seat then your pants and the straps would make things complicated to move your leg over.

When I had my surgeries that next year, I had to take a year off of anything hardcore as everybody was very cautious about if I made one false turn my rods would burst out of my back. Of course, I was very concerned about my back too but I’m not the type of person to let something keep me back long. It’s back enough that for three whole years I had to rely on somebody to help me sit up. I never got back to my ole self by getting myself from the floor to the bed. Even though we did try to work on that last summer, things didn’t really work well. The only thing that I still know how to do is get me off my bed and the couches. Everything had to sit back and watch me heal up. When I hit middle school, I wanted to get back into walking again. Well, one of the things that was different from going to elementary to middle school was that certain teachers were not so happy letting the therapists take me out of their classes and walking in a walker with already bad wheels, on carpet was just evil. When we practiced that first year, we went into the gym. When I was in sixth grade everything I wanted to happen just came to shierking halt and it was just devastating to me. I wasn’t strong enough to move around on the carpet with being barefoot and wearing sneakers. I actually ignored my feelings of feeling defeated until it was like last two weeks of school and I wanted to show my friends that I could walk like them, but they were all watching a movie and nobody wanted to see me walk. It kind of hurt me to see everybody that I had always admired not caring about it like I thought they would. I think an hour later I told my therapist I was done with it.

As I look back on my time on it, I just wish embracing my beauty in the wheelchair came that easy! For certain things, I tend to get a lot faster. I had always heard that “beauty is pain” and so I think I just accepted being uncomfortable in the walker. It wasn’t so much about being in it and around my friends that made me hate it. It was mostly the fact that when we were taking these pictures, it was gym class and they were playing volleyball. It was a scary experience for me even though I had my aide, physical therapist, mom, and nana in the room watching over me, anything with balls of the size of my head scared the living crap out of me. While I sit in my wheelchair, I feel very empowered and less scared by anything, in this I was much shorter and there was nothing really there to protect me. I still don’t understand why everybody wanted me to join in that day. I usually do other stuff whenever they did these sorts of games anyways.

Sometimes I feel like there are some similarities between doing the walker and the regular push wheelchairs. Besides the no seatbelts, I still have to drag my feet out below and use my toes as my guide. I am still spinning in circles by only using one foot. My back and neck hurt because the back part of the seats are weird and too short for me to relax my body in and both have four wheels that squeal like monkeys everytime I moved around. In a way, I think I belong in my powered wheelchair. I’m more mobile to get from place to place then being in both a push wheelchair and down on the floor. I have always felt like a total badass being in my chair, nobody really messed with me while I’m in it and everybody seems to get out of my way a lot easier knowing I could potentially run over their feet. I just feel very different from all three of them, one gave me a wake up call, one has its ups and downs, and the other just makes me feel like a total badass. I wouldn’t want to change my life. After my experience with trying to “walk” in this thing, I think walking is completely overrated.

What Makes You Smile?

So many thing can make a person happy. Happiness should happen to every person I think. If only sadness didn’t exist. I wouldn’t be sad all the time and I wouldn’t have to help somebody else find their happiness. Everything you have or do gives you some kind of happiness you just don’t know it. Music, movies, books, and tv shows are the most common objects we use to make us happy if happiness doesn’t come to us. Family, friends, food, no homework on Fridays are the ones that makes us happy just out of the blue. What makes you smile? I’m fairly easy to get a smile on my face. I’ll do anything to get a smile on your face too. So be careful if you say you’re sad or anything. I’ll get you in a better mood.

Protected: I Don’t Cry On The Outside Anymore.

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