[la-lauren]

D kept getting Instagram reels saying a job offer was coming for a job she didn’t apply for.

It happened today. Pays the same as her current role and gets her out of this mess.

She’s on the fence about it, but I’m just in shock that it even happened. They were looking for someone with her exact background, which is pretty niche, and it just fell into her lap.

Rather than encouraging her to take it, I’m trying to be neutral this time around, but I do hope she takes it….

[la-lauren]

It is really hard knowing that we have these concentration camps, that they’re growing, that families are being torn apart, abused, and murdered — and that everyone else continues on with their day because it does not affect them.

It feels icky to live through this but not know how to help. You cannot make people care about each other, but somehow you have to for anything to change. I don’t get it.

We all also need money to survive, so we’re focused on ourselves, but maybe the point is that we do have to put our own lives on the line because others’ lives are already being sacrificed for this awful machine of a society.

I’ve thought a lot about what would happen if I got detained for protesting or whatever, and I don’t think I’d make it long. My blood sugar is one factor, along with my thyroid that needs daily meds, but I am collecting other issues now too that all exacerbate each other. I’d be so sick without medical care pretty quickly.

It makes me scared to speak up, though it’s probably unlikely that anything would happen to me — a white girl.

Guess I wonder how uncomfortable I’d make myself to make a difference.

[la-lauren]

Got more labs back. I have autoimmune gastritis, which is apparently pretty normal for people with Hashimoto’s. Next stop is a gastroenterologist. 🙃

This explains why meat feels like it doesn’t digest. It’s because it doesn’t.

I really want to take time off from work to see all these specialists and trial medications. It is so hard to focus on work when I’m getting labs back that are like, “Yeah, all your systems are fucked.”

[septemberkisses]

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.

[la-lauren]

Body, can you just chill out?

[la-lauren]

Currently running on the theory that I have MCAS until I see my allergist next week. It would explain literally every symptom I have, and I just read that weight loss, even if done slowly like I have, can trigger flares.

[la-lauren]

Just got the results from my blood smear back. Trying not to freak out, but they want to do molecular studies for some additional things, including leukemia.

From my research and my other labs, I don’t think it’s likely, but the fact that they still want to rule it out anyway scares me.

[la-lauren]

Navigating healthcare in the U.S. is a nightmare, but I can’t say that navigating it anywhere with chronic illness is particularly easy.

I really do feel like I’m in a race against time to get help for whatever this flare has become before losing my job. I know that FMLA can help temporarily, but I can’t be on it forever and getting in to different specialists takes months. I’m waiting 7 months for endocrinology and 4 months for gynecology.

If I knew that any one specialist could help me, I’d be semi-ok with the wait, but the primary care people I’ve seen are stumped. My white blood count has been chronically elevated for 10 years, and antibiotics don’t touch it. The ONE time I saw the hematologist, my blood count was normal, so it was dismissed. Like, universe, what even is that???

My most recent bloodwork was the most elevated it’s been though, and I’m struggling with narrow pulse pressure. I do have a cardiac stress test next Friday, so I am hoping something shows there if it is cardiac, though the heart monitor came back with “phenomenal” results, per the doctor.

I don’t want to lose my income, but quitting and lying around in bed for most of the day is historically the only way to quiet the flares.

I’m so frustrated.

[introvertsnation]

[hotvampireadjacent]

[anxietyproblem]

[la-lauren]

Dream come true, and my niece gets a cute book.

[la-lauren]

I did not get my hair fixed before today, so roots and all I go. Didn’t factor in that my hair would be so frizzy either. The humidity is wild today.

[la-lauren]

I tried to get a psychic reading from a highly rated person, but he said he couldn’t establish a good connection with me and to reach out to customer service for a refund for the three minutes he spoke to me.

Yes, I’ve gotten this desperate.

Life is just feeling hard right now.

[glowcowboy]

also when fleetwood mac was like “can i handle the seasons of my life?”

[kosmogrl]

[la-lauren]

I’ve started adding 5 pound weights in each hand when I’m exercising to stop a blood sugar spike, and it was so sobering to hold them and realize I’ve lost over double what I’m holding. On my body, I feel like I haven’t lost much of anything. Holding the weights in my hands though? Surprisingly heavy.

I am expecting to be at the 30lb loss mark with my next weigh in. It’s been slow, but it’s been the easiest I’ve ever lost weight.