A Game Of Crohn's

I don’t mean to brag, y’all, but I am totally in love. With a mortician. That I see on YouTube. So it’s kind of a one-sided thing at this point. It'll remain one-sided. S'ok. *Swoon* Her name is Caitlin Doughty. She’s amazeballs. I’m in love with pretty much every aspect of her that I’ve seen. I agree with her stand on green burials. She’s educated me on so much, and changed my mind about a lot of things that have to do with the funeral industry (and it is - very much - an industry that is milking you for billions, with a B, each year). I mean, why wouldn’t I want to wash the body of my mother after (God forbid) she passes? How many times has she washed MY body? Why would I want to leave her in the hands of strangers? All fantastic questions that I had never thought of until I watched her channel. But I’m not here to debate any of that with anyone. It’s personal choice, but she makes brilliant points. (I’ll link to her YouTube channel at the bottom, as w...

I knew that she was a girl. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me, I could hear her voice. She already had a name, Lila Grace, named - in part - after her amazing cousin, Grace Ann. And I knew, the second I saw a pink spot of blood, that I had lost her. Just writing that sentence, even now, even six years later, brings me to tears. I don’t know what kind of mother I would have been to little Lila, being that I went through my own mini hell in the past six years. I don’t know why she was taken from me, but I’ve been through the whole list - her body was broken, her father and I aren’t together anymore and what kind of life would that have been for her?, something wasn’t right, *I* am not the best genetic contributor, etc, etc, ad nauseum . It’s pointless to wonder and to beat myself up, but guess what? I do it endlessly. It’s my fault and I killed my baby. With crohn’s. That was my daughter’s gift. Awareness. It's about to get real, y'all. I knew that whateve...

I stopped publishing about coming off of oxycodone because of something that I saw on facebook - took personally - and felt shamed. I don’t really want to go too much into it now, because that’s not really the focus of this entry, but I’m still shocked by who the secret jerks are. via GIPHY That’s all I’ll say about that. Anyway - I had my six month check-up for my stem-cell transplant! For a clear re-cap, since one hasn’t been provided; after the stem-cell coated plug placement, I ended up re-fistulizing not once, but twice, which resulted in many emergency trips to Rochester by myself in screaming pain, and two extra surgeries. As I’ve said, I still have an open tract, and I’m being treated bi-weekly with silver nitrate (which chemically burns the tissue, theoretically getting it to fuse together). It hurts intensely (have someone put out a cigarette directly on your bum), and causes bleeding and weeping for days afterwards. Pictured: Hell sticks All...