A Tale of Poop (or why I haven't been around for a while)
Psst. If you haven't figured out by the title that there will be some TMI in here, I cannot help you. Mostly tame (I typed up an entire story about it earlier, but then you would be reading what was literally tons and tons of shitty paragraphs with more detail than anyone really wants to know), but in case anyone is grossed out by some (actually, one) bodily functions.
Warning for needles and that sort of thing, too?
Basically, the short version is that in the beginning of January, I started getting the symptoms you would get if you ate suspicious raw eggs or made a habit of licking raw meat and eating undercooked food, except multiply that by at least 20 more bowel movements a day than you would expect.
This ended up with me going to the hospital twice, getting more blood drawn than should exist in a body my size, having IVs stuck in veins I didn't even know IVs could be stuck in, and getting not only a colonoscopy, but an upper endoscopy at the tender young age of 24 (my heart goes out to anyone who has ever had to prep for a colonoscopy).
Not only that, but I had the pleasure of falling behind in class, which in medical school terms is called "You are going to die and then you are going to die some more but before that you are going to worry a lot."
Basically, I've been diagnosed with what is either Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis (I show signs of both, yay!), which just means that my finely tuned immune system is a dumbass that decided for reasons unknown to science at the moment that my gut is a foreign entity and must be dealt with. As a result, well. Guess.
Shitting 20+ times a day surprisingly leaves you fatigued as hell, even after the steroids (which come with the great side effect of insomnia) have kicked in and reduced that to a regular human amount of shitting. With how tired I've been from getting no sleep, my body trying to clean up the aftermath my dumb as hell white blood cells left and rebuild, and trying to keep up with school, I've basically just quit tumblr.
Will I be back? Probably not for a while. Maybe not for a long time. Maybe never at all. Being off tumblr has been one of the nicest things for me, and I'd like to keep it that way. Stress is known to provoke my disease, and tumblr's stupid(er than even my own traitor immune cells) environment never fails to add to my stress. In addition, I don't have the time. And the little free time I do have, I'd like to spend doing things I actually like.
What I'm saying is, don't expect to hear from me here. As for my art tumblr, I don't know when or if I'll update that. Maybe I'll get a dA. The important thing is, I won't see any messages I get here.
Fortunately, since almost everyone who follows me here is a friend or a friend of a friend, you guys have other ways of getting in touch with me (gaia, email, the Drift, etc) if you want. I probably won't be on gaia for a while either, so email is the best way to go if you want to talk and hear me tell you dumb things, though honestly, I'm probably going to be slow with email for a while, too. I don't mind the random email and I'd love for you to shout about your day at me, but if you get a reply a week later, that's not me hating you. That's me testing the limits of not getting sleep while ill.
If you'd like my email, send me a message here and I'll give it to you. I'll probably check back periodically for a few days, and then it's good bye to tumblr.
ellievsbear
amandla
gamechangershow
stormborns
theartofmadeline
titsay
