Hey guys,
The last couple of weeks has been extremely emotional for multiple reasons. The week of January 16th is always an electrically charged week for me. This year was a pretty big milestone, at least to me it’s a big milestone. It was the seventh anniversary of my mom’s suicide. Since I’m going to be twenty-eight this year that means that I have spent 1/4th of my life without my mom. It’s kind of crazy to even think about. I miss her so much every single day. I know she would be proud of me no matter what my brain tries to tell me otherwise.

Monday, January 16th, I ended up going to her grave and sitting there for a while. I’m not going to lie I don’t go and visit my mother’s grave as often as I should, but I don’t find peace there a lot. I know that she is not there that is only a place for her body to rest, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I am currently making her a headstone which is going to be a wooden cross with her name on it. I have it almost all the way finished. I just need to finish up the paint and touch up some details before it will be ready to go. I came home from the graveyard and ended up getting back in bed.

Wednesday the 18th, I had to go to Baton Rouge for the neurosurgeon’s doctor's appointment. All they were wanting was another myelogram, which is a set of images looking at the details of my spinal cord. The 3-hour drive started around 4 o’clock that morning. The ride didn’t seem as long as usual on the way there but then coming home it seemed to take forever. The test wasn’t scheduled until 10:30 that morning but I had to be there at 8:30. Once we got there, check-in took a good forty-five minutes to get through and get me in the back. Everyone was super friendly and knew a lot about my issues with my injury. One nurse stayed with me through the entire process which made it more comfortable for me. They put me on the table on my belly, I had to be on my belly for the entire test. I had done well up until it was time to lay me flat on my stomach and tilt the table where my feet were above my head. I started to get really sweaty, lightheaded, and just overall not feeling very well. The nurse told everyone that the test had to start and I had to get off of my stomach. There were only two more images that were needed so they decided just to forget about those two images since I was having such a hard time. They took me to the recovery room. I was given a Dr. Pepper for the caffeine and some graham crackers because I had not eaten anything all day, and the nurse could tell that I was extremely shaky The doctor had already forewarned me that caffeine would be my best friend during the day, because of the headache that was going to come with doing the test. After the test, I was not allowed to lay flat or at a 90° angle because they needed the contrast to not go and cover my brain.

Sunday, January 21 I got the text message that I had been dreading for the past few weeks. My Aunt Pam had passed away. She is my momma’s brother’s wife. She has been a very big part of my life even before my mom passed away but especially since then. In a lot of ways, she has been like a grandmother figure to me my entire life. Honestly, that’s just the type of person that she was in general to anyone she knew. She was a very Godly woman and I do not doubt that she entered the gates of heaven. My mom got to see one of her favorite people again. It may have been a sad day for me, but it was a glorious day in Heaven.

Tuesday, January 24, the afternoon was the visitation for Pam. I got in my chair earlier that day and did a few things around the house before we had to go. I saw a bunch of the family that I had not seen in quite a long time. We told stories about Pam and celebrated her life while we ate dinner. It was about eight or so by the time we got home and still had to do wound care. Needless to say, it was a late night.

Wednesday, January 25 I had a funeral for Pam. The morning started rough, not gonna lie. I don’t feel comfortable when getting put in my chair and the fact that clothes are not fitting or looking like I want them to. I need to work on my self-esteem. The funeral was at 10 o’clock so we had to get up kind of early to be able to get me up and dressed and do something with my hair. I sat on the second row. It was honestly nice to see all of my family it’s not very often that we see each other anymore. I couldn’t bring myself to go to the casket. I haven’t been able to bring myself to go up to any other casket since my mother's funeral. That is just not the last memory I want of the person, especially after the meltdown I had with my mom. When the funeral was over, I followed everyone to the graveside, but because it was raining, I didn’t get out. We all met back up at the church to have a fellowship and eat lunch together. There was so much food that it was kind of hard to choose what I wanted to eat. I already know that my belly will not hold much so if I got a whole lot, they would be a whole lot wasted. We visited with a lot of the family before we headed home and I got back in bed.

Thursday, January 26 daddy came to install the new detectors. I was in my chair before he got there. He even got one for the kitchen because there was not one in the kitchen at all. In all honesty that doesn’t make any sense to me because that’s where fires begin most often. I do understand that every time the kitchen gets smokey the detector in the kitchen would go off but I think it’s important. While my dad was here we told him about the check engine light and the trac off light came on in the van at the same time. We had previously gotten the oil changed and the tires checked and they saw the codes. He cleared the codes but it wasn’t very far down the road that they both came on again. He did something with the battery to reset everything. If it happens again I’m going to take it to the auto mechanic shop. I already have one in mind that would serve multiple purposes. ​

Friday, January 27th, I had to go back to Baton Rouge to see the doctor about my hands and elbow. The appointment was originally at 4 PM but thankfully they rescheduled it for earlier that day. We had to leave by seven that morning so we could still get there on time. The morning didn’t start well because I feel like I can’t get sit in the chair right and my clothes not getting put on correctly so I felt like I look horrible. The three-hour drive went by fairly fast to me and we got there by 10:30. We were stressing because we knew that we were going to be late and when we called them they said that there were only fifteen minutes after the appointment grace period to get there. Mallory and I both said that we were going to show our butts if we got there and they wouldn’t see me because we were late. Once we got into the parking garage. It took like five minutes for the elevator to go a few floors and pick us up. Of course, we went to the first building and it was the wrong one so we had to end up going around to the other building. We got signed in and only had to wait probably 15 minutes before they called my name, that’s where this visit started going haywire. We ended up spending three hours in the back waiting for the doctor to see us and for them to be able to find the correct paperwork. The first time one of the doctor's colleagues come in and said that they were needing more imaging. When the doctor finally come in, he sat down in the chair and explained what he thought was going on. He explained it to me as this is just a part of my spinal cord injury; they get worse over time. In his opinion, even my previous nerve studies do not show there’s not anything majorly wrong with my elbows or my wrist. The reason my hands stop working is just my spinal cord injury getting worse. He understood that after my last spinal fusion, I lost all hand movement and he did say that the other fusion could have messed with something. The new myelogram did show that some are tightening around my T1 which is located right under the C6 and C7 vertebrae. I had my C6 and C7 vertebrae fused in September 2021. Those were fused to my original fusion of C3, C4, and C5. Dr. Bowie of the NeuroMedical Center of Baton Rouge could go in and fuse the T1 and T2 vertebrae to my already fused C3-C7 and decompress the T1. He says there’s a 50/50 chance that this fusion will help anything but in his medical opinion he doesn’t see it helping. I told him about the pain and how my thumb literally feels like it’s going to fall off; including the muscle wasting in my right hand. He’s going to run another nerve study in my upper extremities with his special test there at the spine institute and see what it shows to make sure that there’s not anything going on in my hand. The only other thing he could do for me referred me to a neurologist at the same clinic that specializes in neuropathy. He’s calling everything more or less neuropathy now. So before we left his office I made an appointment to get my new nerve study done on February 10th in Baton Rouge and an appointment with the neuropathy doctor in March.

Well hello, folks!
I hope everyone has been having a great start to the new year. It’s been a pretty good week for me overall.
Monday was a little on the boring side. I had made plans with a guy friend to hang out for New Year’s so I decided to go ahead and get up in my chair. I did a little bit of housework and some personal hygiene stuff that I could do myself. It was later in the day that Ryan had to cancel because of time getting away from him. He lives two hours away from me so he wouldn’t have been able to stay long because of time restraints. So for the remainder of the day, I got to sit on the porch enjoying the sunshine while doing a few things on my phone. Mallory and I cooked a pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon with sweet peas and cornbread. It was supposed to be black-eyed peas but since Mallory doesn’t eat beans she didn’t know the difference. I got a good shock when I took a bite of my pea and cornbread mix and it was sweet peas, not black-eyed peas.
Tuesday I ended up having to get back in my chair because Mallory had to go to her scheduled visitation with her little boy. It was something that slipped by our brains until about seven that morning. While she was gone I went to work on my kitchen. It was definitely not how I like it kept. I started by gathering all of the dirty dishes that I could and then went to work in the sink. When my hands felt gross from being in the water I would move to something else and then go back to the dishes. I finished everything that I could by myself because I continued to clean around the house. There were a few times that I wanted to cry because I couldn’t do something as easily as I could.
Wednesday was pretty boring overall. I just stayed in bed. I placed a Walmart order with a few things that needed to be picked up for the house as well as picked up the ingredients for spaghetti. One day I want to try my hand at making my own spaghetti sauce, but until then I just used a jar from Walmart that had garlic and cheese in the sauce already. I honestly had trouble making up my mind if I wanted to use just meatballs or ground beef. The only thing exciting that happened on Wednesday was the fact that I got my pressure alternating cushion in the mail. It didn’t come till around 5 o’clock that afternoon. I’m hoping that this type of cushion will help relieve the chance of getting another pressure sore once this one has healed up. My dad came to install a gas heater in my bedroom. When the weather went down to 17° at night, the temperature in my bedroom also would not stay up. My bedroom and bathroom are located furthest from the air conditioning unit so I am assuming that the hot air does not reach these two rooms in my house. I didn’t want to get stuck without another heater if the weather were to turn back cold. He got just about everything hooked up and placed on the wall but decided to come back Thursday to finish hooking the line up under the house.
I reached out to my academic advisor at Southern New Hampshire University this week as well to let him know that I would not be able to start classes like I had planned because my wound was not healed. He agreed that it would be best to not go forward with the class until I am healed up completely so we have dropped all of my classes. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it yet. I know that it is the best thing for me right now because it’s obvious that I am not going to be able to do schoolwork with trying to heal up my pressure sore.
Thursday was honestly busy but so worth it. I ended up having to get in my chair because Mallory had to go to Harrisonburg for an appointment. While she was gone, I ended up seeing my dad finish putting in the heater line, Jessica do wound care, my Maw Sue came to visit, and a friend named Ryan come over, I already knew that it was going to be a busy day. My dad was the first one to show up with my uncle Ricky to finish putting in the gas line to my heater. It took them about two hours to finish everything up. There were complications after complications, of course, but they finally got it up and running. It’s an extremely large heater so I’m not gonna need it very much. While my dad was here I got him to look at the toilet in my bathroom that has been constantly running. He told me that it needs a whole new insert piece and then he would bring me one the next time he come this way. This is one reason why my water bill was extremely high this month; $202. I know the water leak played a big hand in the water being so expensive, but this is probably the first water bill I have ever seen this high. It wasn’t even a good ten minutes after my dad left that Jessica and Sue pulled up. This was the first time I have gotten to see Sue in a while and it was great. I can’t even begin to describe how much I miss the fun times we used to have sitting on Jessica‘s porch in the sunshine. It’s honestly kind of crazy to me how much time shows on my family members. Sue fell asleep on my couch while Jessica and I did my wound care. We let her sleep while we went outside for a few minutes, then checked on all of the fish. I am not exactly sure how, but somehow I have a missing beta fish in my 20-gallon aquarium. We have searched everywhere and can’t find her. The only thing I can see that happened is one of my cats got on the lid of the aquarium and got her. I guess there is one more possible answer which is she jumped out of the tank and died but if this is the case, I may not find a body with all the animals I have running around my house. After a little while they had to go. Again, not even ten minutes after they left that Ryan showed up. He’s a little bit goofy and short (shhh don’t tell him I said that). We met a while ago, I want to say back in August. At first, we were thinking about dating but decided to just stay friends. He is a good friend. He’s come to my house multiple times and he even came to visit me when I was in the hospital back in November. We sat on the porch for a little while, enjoying the sunshine while we talked. I was trying out my new cushion and it was starting to hurt my butt so I asked Ryan if he would mind putting me in the bed and we’d watch a movie. He agreed so we put me back in bed and cuddled up to watch Shameless together. He knows that I can’t control my body temperature so he says he’s my heat rock. The warmth coming from his body feels a lot better than the heater but sucks when he moves. He lives two hours away from me, so it wasn’t but a few hours before he had to go home to take care of his niece. Since I was still home alone, we had to put me back in my chair. This was the first time he’s ever done it by himself, and I have to give the man credit, he did very well for the first time. It was absolutely hilarious watching him drive my chair back and forth to the bathroom. Once we got my back in my chair, we sat on the porch for a few more minutes talking before he decided he needed to leave, he was already running late from when he was supposed to leave. I got to sit in the sunshine for a little while longer before Mallory came home. It wasn’t long after she got home that we ended up putting me back in bed as much as I didn’t want to.
Friday was wound care so I had to get back in my chair. I woke up extremely early like I always do; around 4 AM. I played on my phone until it was seven. Once I was in my chair, I washed my face and brushed my teeth. It’s amazing how something as simple as that can make a person feel better. We left a tad bit early so that we would have plenty of time to get there. We didn’t have to wait too long in the waiting room surprisingly. “Exam room two please,” the nurse said as she took us back. Steven was back from his vacation finally. I honestly didn’t like the timeframe for this surgery. The doctor mentioned that my pre-protein levels and my protein levels were just a hair lower than what they needed to be so I also have to work on my protein intake which I already knew I was going to have to do anyway. The big kicker is that, I now have to be nicotine free for my surgery. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem but they are actually checking my blood levels for nicotine this time. I’m not so much worried about the nicotine addiction because I have swapped to a Vape that is no nicotine and I am doing just fine. But why the fuck couldn’t they have told me this when they mentioned the surgery? So they are going to monitor my nicotine levels and go from there on surgery. They still talked about my insurance needing to be dropped or changed in order for the surgery too. So right now I don’t even have a sight for the end of this wound. I don’t know how long it takes for nicotine levels to drop or how long my surgery will take to get approved. I’m fucking stuck in limbo here. This is not a place my mental health needs to be alone. I’m ready to just say fuck it and give up. This bed is not doing me any favors as far as physically or mentally and I’ve had it. My mental health is what’s struggling here and in my own opinion it’s the most important part of being healthy. My body can be sick but as long as my mind is strong I can make it. This is completely different. My mind is weak as well as my body.

Hey guys and gals!
Last year was extremely hard for me for multiple reasons but I am bound and determined to make this year better than the last one. I have written out some of my goals for 2023. I tend to overload myself with goals and none of them seem to come true so this year I have done only a few as actual goals for the year.