Category: Random Author Babble

Scenes #1-6 Updated to Free Fic Tormenting A Second Kiss!

Posting tired, as usual, so I’m not sure what I want to say about this fanfic atm. Let’s see… I was frustrated these characters don’t get together until one is reincarnated. This is going off the books, not the show. Like, this is too long a story for that shit. They have this cute but cartoony dynamic where Wei Wuxian says everything without meaning, while Lan Wangji says nothing while meaning everything. This is supposed to be them at 20, and the original book has them communicating as children while also slaughtering ancient baddies, going to war, and saving Clans and upholding civilizations. So I thought, what if instead of blaming Wei Wuxian for being “oblivious”, maybe Lan Wangji could grow the fuck up and open his mouth and say what he means? And sex, because why wait until dead? Oh, and give them lube! (Asses aren’t vaginas. They don’t self lubricate, and kindly, not all vaginas are great at that either, so give your characters lube. Ugh.)

Saw The Untamed on Netflix, learned it was a Chinese censored gay romance (censored as in gay people are completely erased. It’s a terrible type of homophobia because it’s insidious, not suggesting violence or rejection, but that one doesn’t exist at all, zero place in society and the world. Completely erased). The entire original story is a romance, yet they insist on making a 50 episode story pretending it’s not, trying to insist long glances are the same as representation of existing. Might as well be some rare, magical being instead of an ordinary queer for how it’s treated, and I found it fucking offensive. This isn’t special shit. It wasn’t a very sexual or blatant love story. If you read the books you’ll see nothing sexual even happens until the last book. But the very identity of these characters had to be stolen away for the censors, ruining the ending completely. Like, wtf was it all for? The main couple wander off separate. They did nothing to represent them being gay and still made sure they couldn’t be happy at the end to punish them and anyone watching who might be gay and hoping they’d be allowed to have love. Fucking homophobic.

Another thing that doesn’t exist in the censored version is the agency of the dead. Apparently they’re fighting fears of superstition, which for whatever reason means that you will see negative depictions of the dead where they are controlled to commit atrocities, but all the examples of the dead saving, helping, being allowed to get revenge on their own for being wronged? Completely erased. You can’t have a hope that balance might happen if you’re wronged. No glimmer of an afterlife. It’s all erased because fear of thoughts. They have to create a nightmare or nothing at all. Lose your parent and hope they’re watching after you? Not in this place, but a zombie might kill you.

The main character Wei Wuxian gets help from the dead and controls their resentment to use as his own magic. That’s erased from the censored version. I seriously don’t fucking understand why they even adapted it for the screen since everything seemed to offend. They instead have him only controlling those who are still alive but missing their spiritual cognition (something like the soul being stolen. You can have a soul but you can’t be gay?). The show adds in an extra element called the Yin Iron that is used to take something complex and realistic such as a group of people going to war against their peers, and turning it into the 2 dimensional idea that one man is obsessed and corrupted by this evil object and everyone else is tainted by it and guilty by association. Good and evil are connected to an object, not choices or actions. The show was hard to get through, gonna be real. I’m not a fan of epic war dramas, and they pace it as the past being this huge block of episodes until I forgot wtf happened in the current time at the beginning. It was arduous. It picked up once they got back into current time, but the novel paced things much better and didn’t need to pad with pointless scenes.

I think the biggest theme change that raised my eyebrow was how in the show, events that the main character observes is now something he is directly involved in. They stop pacing it as a mystery and instead turn it into more action adventure. It would be like adapting the Great Gatsby and having Nick Carraway taking over Gatsby’s role, stealing the girl, etc. I’d like to think it was to make it feel more active, but I think it’s something to do with that censoring again, or maybe just cultural. The show seems to want to drill in the idea that being bold, different, brave, and doing what is morally correct when society is against you will be punished. By death. Without supernatural balance or vengeance after death. What happened to others is now Wei Wuxian’s fault instead of being an observer. He holds it all on his shoulders, and it’s suggested that his actions, and being corrupted by the evil object, are why he must suffer and be killed. Like, it’s a weird ass change. They take the grays of clans of power-hungry people who make their living off resentment of the dead through fighting the ghouls created by it, and therefore are, at a systematic social level, encouraged not to change the world to prevent such resentment, and say, nah, evil object made them do bad. Don’t question the system that needs inequality to feed the monsters so we have a purpose in life. Just fight the baddies who have the evil object.

This problem of the “good guys” feeding a cycle of violence is a pretty common trap for writers in those genres. When they build civilization around fighting a foe, you have a power imbalance demanding things stay the same. Somebody has to die for the good guys to prove they’re heroes. It’s not the rarest problem, but the adaption made it worse by introducing an evil object, and claiming it was reason for evil actions, and anything against said object is good. Slaughter of surviving innocents justified instead of, you know, questioning a shitty hierarchy where shitty people do shitty things and society doesn’t want to deal with conflict so looks the other way, being extra shitty. I don’t mind the people behaving badly, the conflict with society. I mind that it was flattened, exaggerated, and there’s no way to know if the problem was understood, or if it was changed because of the censoring. Like, did they need Wei Wuxian to be his own demise because the excessive homophobia needed him to suffer even after erasing that part of his identity? Who the fuck knows. It’s so scrambled by the censoring of the adaption that anything and nothing of these intentions could be true.

If I seem too critical, I assure you, I think about all shows and reading like this. I want to understand how it works, the world and minds that created it, and what it’s saying even when one might not know they’re saying something at all. This show just had two sources to see changes from, making it extra interesting.

Anyways, stayed up too late rambling. Got a new set of glasses that seem to be solving the eye strain… maybe. It’s my first day using the monitor instead of writing on my phone. I’ll know more by the end of the week. I’m doing okay with short things like this on the phone, but I don’t think I could write a novel like this. I organize things visually, including complex plot lines. Maybe I could go back to the sticky note method if I need to…

Scenes #1-5 updated to the FREE fic Foresight!

Hey, a new fanfic! After I wiped the Potter shit out, I didn’t think I’d ever be inspired. Then I discovered Pit Babe on Netflix.

I realized through a little research that it first existed as an omegaverse type story written by someone out of Thailand (I think. I can’t find the original fic to truly know. There name is _alittlebitch, I was able to find that at least, and it was adapted in Thailand, so I’m assuming they’re from there). I don’t write omegaverse stuff, my werewolves and shifters don’t come from that underlying theme, and I don’t read it so I don’t actually know many of the tropes (beyond mpreg, heat, uh annoying hierarchies forced on individuals when in real wolf packs things ain’t like that; but I get it, it’s a control bdsm kink slash power war for feminism, etc). It was a trip to see those kind of fanservice tropes on the screen, even though the omegaverse stuff wasn’t really present. I really wish I could find the original work just to see how it was adapted.

Anyways, Pit Babe has a really interesting plot once you get an episode or two in. It’s very sweet (cavity inducing at times) lol, and I kinda low key love the crazy amount of product placement. I think it’s nostalgia a bit for the 80s. There are some cultural things I don’t quite get, or maybe it’s the world created. There’s a weird normalization of domestic violence in some scenes that are just, like, okay, we need to have a talk and that doesn’t involve your hands, fucker. I haven’t watched the second season yet… It felt done with the first and I dunno, I’ve got shit to pretend I can do instead of watching TV. But I might give it a shot… Maybe if they drop the whole Mama thing (pretty sure it’s cultural, or just some weird need to force gender rolls on the bottom (is that an omegaverse thing?). Like, it’s not a perfect show, but it’s fun).

I then noticed Netflix recommending a bunch of different shows with not only the same actors, but also a lot of the same pairings. I’m sure it’s for the comfort of the actors–these kinds of softcore scenes deserve a level of familiarity and security for everyone involved, but it has this funny side effect of creating a sort of multiverse where you watch a series that has omegaverse themes, then one about cooking, etc. It makes me think of an anime I used to watch when younger, Project A-ko, where the same characters would keep appearing but in different scenarios each movie, the movies unrelated except for those characters and an underlying multiverse plot. I dunno, it’s fun for the sake of fun, something the world is seriously in need of right now. I know I am.

Ugh, there’s so much work that needs to be done on this site. Just updating the fact I’m not on Patreon anymore is tedious, all because they basically stabbed in the back everyone who brought money in to allow them to be stable and now they’ve decided they don’t like adult content. Funny that, how so many people will make a killing on sex as a business, and then clutch their pearls to ever be associated with it. Like seriously, you’re only here because of sex.

I should make a proper list of all the things I need to do on the site, and go through and fix things up, but my eyes hurt so I don’t want to. Maybe later on a down day if my eyes will agree.

I’ve found some new hacks to the eye pain/migraine situation. I think they’re working, although today is a terrible judge because of all the coding I had to do to get this fic up. I’m currently (on top of all the other things) wearing a specific migraine preventative tint over my glasses pretty much 24/7 to prevent the pain from tipping into migraine levels, while also trying a new to me allergy eye drop that stabilizes mast cells.

My current MCAS treatment is limited. It’s mostly antihistamines and sodium cromolyn, which has results, don’t get me wrong, but they’re limited. Sodium cromolyn is poorly absorbed and won’t do much for areas beyond touch contact and nobody can afford to bathe in this stuff. While the active ingredient in my eye drops can stabilize the entire system of mast cells, apparently. The results were immediate for my eyes on taking it, in 30 minutes I could see color properly again at a vibrancy I forgot existed, able to lift my eyes up and look and see things around me. Everything has been so dim and dull with a background of pain I didn’t realize was there until it lifted for a bit. I’m going to talk to my MCAS doc about it and see if it might be a better choice as an MCAS medicine, not just for the eyes.

For now, I’m seeing an eye doc this week to go over options on the binocular issues. I’m having issues in the car again, that extreme anxiety as my eyes try and fail to track the movement of vehicles. It’s not great. But things are going in a direction, and we’ll call it up. Better than stagnant.

Scene #3 updated to Love Spiked!

I forgot about the eye pain and migraines. Like, it’s part of why I stopped writing, but in my mind it was that I couldn’t cognitively focus, my working memory and object permanence completely burnt out. Nope, not just that. The pain is bad.

I’m looking at possible solutions. There’s a surgery, but I’d like to avoid it if possible. There could be a level of disuse that needs overcoming from being bedbound so long. My binocular vision is struggling, and I’ve done all the hacks I can find, patching, monitor settings, distance viewing, font sizes, but once the pain ramps up, its days of recovery and not being able to use my eyes. Got my first migraine this week after months of not having any, and it was from a combo of reading and then trying to write.

I’m currently looking at a specific line of old monitors on ebay. Apparently modern monitors are too bright, and literally can’t get dark enough in nits to be useful for someone who has light sensitivity. I don’t always have light sensitivity, but the more screen work I do, the more light sensitive I get.

It’s not new. It was disabling the last years I was trying to write. I just, I dunno, managed to forget until the pain made it so I couldn’t anymore. Sometimes things go away, and I hoped the migraines were more an MCAS thing than a fucked up eye thing.

It’s not just time stolen with the pain, but it really messes up my writing. I can’t focus. Can barely edit. I think a lot of the poor working memory had to do with the fact that my eyes were screaming in pain while staring at a screen. I didn’t realize how much it scrambles me. Looking at the initial draft I had worked on this scene, it was all exposition and dragging on and I hope I fixed it, but I can’t really tell because I decided to upload today because my eyes hurt again. Html sucks right now, just saying.

I forgot how fucking grumpy the eye pain makes me. Anywho…

I discovered a Netflix show that has inspired me to write a fanfiction. It’s been forever. And it’s actually nice to feel inspired to write something silly and not requiring world building, or sequels, or a plot. Just plain hot smut. I’ve been writing it on my phone cuz the screen can go darker, but I still managed to hurt my eyes…

I dunno. I gotta figure this shit out. Maybe I should just ask for the surgery and hope my insurance will cover it. I have no reason to believe this is going to get better on its own. My eyes pull outwards, but I spent literal years where that didn’t give me eye pain, so I guess I’m hoping it’ll magically stop. I’m just kinda tweaking around the edges of the problem hoping to avoid knives in my eyes. Which, honestly, seems reasonable.

I’ll try to upload the first few scenes of the fanfiction soonish. Probably not today, cuz this fucking screen hurts and I don’t want to deal with it without some rest.

Scenes #1-2 updated to Love Spiked!

So this story, Love Spiked, is set in the Hellcat universe. It’s not particularly connected, outside of how magic works, and the way tech and magic mingle, and nothing is being hidden. It’s a beast story—you know inherited mythical beast powers, which is a throwback to a story type I used to love to write but haven’t since my fanfic days. I really liked how easy the Hellcat world was, where it was quirky because it was trying to smoosh magic in with technology, instead of keeping them separate and sane. No sanity here. The world doesn’t deserve sanity.

I’m writing this story because I’m feeling inspired to write, and let me say after 3 years of chronic fatigue, inspiration matters. I am running on fumes. I’ve finally gotten to three meals (mostly) a day since the SIBO destroyed my gut, I can sit up in a chair and type, and usually the excessive speed of my pulse isn’t so high that I can’t think. The MCAS is better as long as I’m not smelling smoke, and the dysautonomia has been absolutely crippling, and doesn’t seem to be interested in getting better no matter what I do. Rebounding has helped, actually, something about the muscle pump bettering the circulation. But my stress tolerance is quite low after so long bed bound.

I’m not taking writing requests, and I think most people understand because I haven’t been particularly shy about talking about these illnesses, just confused waiting for doctors to explain wtf is happening and it taking a long time for them to figure it out.

The real problem is, my confidence is gone. Just absolutely shook. I did everything I could to separate myself from my writing when the cognitive issues hit their worst to preserve a sense of ability, but it wasn’t enough. There is no short-cutting around the trauma of losing your functionality for, what… when was the last book, and I was super sick that last PATB book…? Shit, it was 2020.

Six years of doing everything to get back to functioning, and failing every single time. Why the fuck do I count years when this is the answer? It has changed me. Fucked me up in ways I don’t fully know because I’m only just getting better, and there is no guarantee this level of better is going to last. I slept all day today because I couldn’t stop putting the wrong words in the wrong spots when talking, and it didn’t seem like writing was a good idea. And because I was exhausted after 12 hours of sleep and needed more. Nothing is guaranteed.

I lost my confidence that no matter what, my health was going to figure itself out. That as long as I put the effort in, there was a system in place to make sure I got better. There isn’t. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the US that doesn’t understand that healthcare is a human right, or if it’s because ME/CFS is ignored as that lazy women disease. Or because I was so sick from the MCAS before then, and then the chronic fatigue, that I couldn’t advocate for my health, for doctors to give a fuck, and without that, they didn’t. For the last 3 years, I’ve been exhausted and nobody did anything about it besides me, and that’s just the reality of this illness and this system and being sick and poor in the US. Nobody cares.

I’m not a happy person anymore. I am resilient, which isn’t a choice, but that happiness was something I thought I’d have forever. I worked at it. It is work. But there was nothing left of me to give to that part of me anymore.

I worry it’ll ruin my writing. That my brain is so fucked with the cognitive fluctuations from the dysautonomia that I won’t even know how bad my writing will be—which is what happened in the past and was really distressing. My vocabulary just shrinks and I start writing things the same way cuz my brain isn’t getting enough blood and goes into a tunnel vision mode. I worry I’m going to repeat myself because I don’t remember shit anymore, including my old stories. That I have no new ideas, and that any of my ideas aren’t interesting. I also see very little value in writing, because after years of being in survival mode, wtf is the point of a story? But none of these thoughts are reasons to stop doing something I used to love, and probably still love if my emotional range ever returns. Because survival mode has turned everything dull and empty, a problem when cerebral perfusion is low as well, which mine is from the dysautonomia.

Me returning to writing doesn’t mean I’m okay. When I started writing it was because I had become disabled by the MCAS and dystonia and I was so certain I still mattered even with all that. But after 13 years of these conditions and 3 years of ME/CFS, it’s clear I do not matter, that no one is coming to cure me, and that I cannot make this condition better no matter how hard I try. And that’s a lot of shit I get to deal with—or completely ignore, as is my right.

I don’t want this mindset to fuck with my old serials waiting to be finished, which is why I’m not touching them. I can only hope I won’t be so bitter with the world that I can look at my old writing eventually. So for now, no plans. No promises. I am trying—but I was trying the last 6 years, and that didn’t fucking matter at all. Trying doesn’t change anything, but being alive means trying, so here I am, one day at a time.

Delayed But Not Forgotten

The Canadian wildfire smoke hit the week I wanted to initially get the sight updates done. It took a while to recover. I’m planning to do it this week. I’m nervous – it’s been a while, and as is the issue with procrastinating with website updates, it kinda snowballs so if something has gone wrong, it’s going to be a bigger pain to fix.

I’ve been writing. I have the beginnings of a new novel, which I wasn’t expecting but I was suddenly really inspired and I’ve been doing a lot of plotting and world building since. It’s that obsessive type of writing I haven’t felt in a long time. I’m honestly feeling quite hopeful about it all.

The things that broke in my brain (ignoring the chronic fatigue) seem to be recovering lately. I haven’t tested my working memory to the way I prefer it when writing serial fiction, but I have to start somewhere to regain my momentum. I’m wondering if it’s connected to the TTFD, a better absorbed thiamine. After a bout of SIBO and the hypomagnesia, it’s been difficult to eat regularly, and my gut is less likely to absorb nutrition. Thiamine is an easy deficiency to risk once you add in the restrictive eating and gut inflammation from MCAS. But things are finally reversing in the right direction.

So, first the struggle of dealing with code and then updating with a new story. I feel like I’m doing this in the wrong order – I am not confident with the coding – but the website blares every time I log on to deal with it. Cuz it needs to get done.

Sorry for the forever long wait, peeps. Chronic illness won’t negotiate.

Feeling Better and More Awake

It’s been a while, again. I hate saying it. Like, chronic illness and fatigue have stolen so many years at this point and it’s just exhausting to bring up. But I’ve been much less tired since starting iron treatment and getting my B vitamins up, and I’m going to be back soon.

My main goal atm is to get the website back up to date. Plugins have expired and a main plugin I use to allow me to have those carousels for reading needs to update, and I’m nervous of the amount of work I’m going to be left with if the updates aren’t compatible. So that is my main focus, to just dig through this broken brain of mine for all the html I’ve taught myself, and to make sure things are functioning correctly with all the updates. Then I’ll worry about the creative stuff.

I have no plan, no promise of which stories I’m going to start with this time. Every time I’ve come back with a plan, this illness has knocked me down and stolen me away. So I’m not interested in making promises I can’t keep or in lying to myself. I’m going to see what my abilities are and go from there.

The fatigue has been really difficult the last two years, just absolutely crippling. A combo of iron and b vitamins (plus all the other chronic fatigue support supplements I tried until getting to this point) have finally pulled me from a constant state of exhaustion. My energy levels have improved for long enough that I’m certain it’s not a fluke. That, combined with me able to eat more than a meal a day, has decided me finally coming back.

I’ve been dealing with a resurgence of dysautonomia since getting some energy back, something to do with the POTS I had as a teen getting worse. I think the b vitamins are helping with that, and my mind seems far less fogged and distant. I’ve been feeling creative, something I couldn’t sustain when tired all the time.

As for the MCAS, it’s much better, but not cured. If I’m honest, it’s probably my greatest problem I need to overcome to get back to writing consistently. Every time I have come back to writing, within the same week I would have a really bad MCAS flare and it broke any sense of continuity in my brain, nevermind in my writing.

Every MCAS flare is like starting over as a person because of how it inflames my brain and interrupts basic living. The MCAS treatments I’m on have made it much better, but it can’t protect me from smoke and certain odors, and smoke in the house is enough to steal me away for hours to days with severe agitation, inflammation, painful sores on my tongue, etc. It’s something I’m going to have to figure out how to deal with.

Trying to make a perfect environment has failed, and trying to get my system to not respond has failed, although both improving to the level they have together has improved my day to day. Flares are going to happen, I’m going to have bad days, and I need to figure out how to prevent a bad day from turning into a loss of weeks.

I suppose my other goal is just to get my brain sorted again, into a structure that’s organized, recognizes time again, etc. Gotta remember vocabulary again, all that shit. But I think that’s like any job where you need to restudy after a long break. I gotta remember the settings on the laptop to prevent migraines. But for now, the main thing is updating the website.

I think I’m going to ditch some of the transparency aspects. I like how they look, but I’m not sure they’re all easy to read on, same with the skull wallpaper…

Hope you’ve all been well. There is so much going on in the world, much of it traumatizing. Honestly, some of the war crimes I’ve read about have made me absolutely disgusted and uninterested in writing anything taboo. The depths of the horrors of humanity are on full display lately. I don’t want to imagine worse, create villains that could compete. One doesn’t realize how much their environment asks of a writer until that environment is faced. It’s important that my writing help to deal with trauma, not retraumatize… which is a lot to ask given all the damn trauma happening globally.

When I first started writing, I would only approach it from this cheerful mental place. Even the dark stuff was still this internal playful competition to portray something in a certain way. Now I’m so busy trying to have a brain that works and to be awake and such, it’s hard to remember the fun that drove me to write. Especially with all the shit happening in the world.

Maybe writing will be about creating a less unstable world to live in fantasy for a while to help cope with the real world… I dunno. It’s been so long. I know this illness has changed me, not just physically. I don’t know if I’ll like the stories I write, if anyone will. Lol, but that hasn’t stopped me before.

Enough rambling. At least my keyboard still works. 😉

Lev Ashbane, Agent of WOES updated to Untitled!

Hey, I’m starting something new. It’s got magical world in plain sight vibes, set during cozy fall, and all about demonic possession, an ancient evil, home break ins, and hot romance. I don’t have a title just yet, but I suspect Wraithwood might be in it cuz it’s the setting, or something less whimsical, like Possession or something.

Will it be ready by Halloween? Un-fucking-likely. This was supposed to be a simple fuck fic, but I wasn’t liking how samey it felt to some of my older stuff. So I thought I’d do some worldbuilding, make a unique place for this setup, and hopefully that creativity would enhance the story. Well, apparently the moment I try to worldbuild, I just overthink it into some rambling mess of a novella, possibly a full sized novel. It’s really too early to tell. Once the characters are on the page long enough, they’ll let me know.

I was upset at first. Like, it’s been years, I’m trying to get back into the flow of writing with something supposedly easy, and I just overcomplicated the fuck out of it right away. But really… I’m having fun. I’m remembering what I miss about writing. It’s been a seriously long time.

That isn’t to say I don’t love the multiple series I have waiting for me. I’m just dealing with a lot of expectations I put on myself around my old fics. Those expectations have made writing less about fun and more about proving to myself that I’m well enough to keep up with my previous pace. Like, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to write this update before bed cuz I’m so tired, then I remembered this was the feeling I always had when I was writing. Exhausted.

I had no balance with my writing, no boundaries, and as someone who is chronically ill, that doesn’t just harm my writing; it harms me. But I’m also a chronically tired person. One of my genetic conditions has fatigue as a default because my muscles are always overcompensating to the point of dystonia. There’s no way to do this writing gig perfectly. And finally accepting that has allowed me to come back and play without holding all the crazy expectations I’ve been holding for so long.

We’ll see how it goes. Altering some meds has had a huge impact, resulting in less dystonia, less electrolyte dumping and sudden collapses. Even my eyes are better, experiencing less strain with screen work. My thoughts are clearer, I’m awake more, and in a body that isn’t suffering as much as just a year ago. Most importantly, I’m able to hold plot points in my head again and visualize on my inner screen, so I’m not dealing with that paralyzing fear of fucking it all up out of forgetting everything.

I missed this, having fun writing, being able to escape into a story in my head without having a jumble of guilt and frustration ruin it because it wasn’t what I was “supposed” to write. Like, it is what it is. I’m lucky to still have the website after the cost of things and not being able to publish in years. Shit is happening in the US that is terrifying for so many. And globally, fuck, humanity is facing a crisis at its very core. It’s a lot. It’s okay to write something stupid, and silly, and escape for a while into a place where evil is just an over the top concept instead of the fucking crazy happening out here.

That might also be a little of why stories like Demon Bonded and PATB feel too much right now. They’re very much dark realities, good people trapped in exaggerated mirrors of the worst the world can come up with. Except the world lately keeps pushing for worse, normalizing genocides and dehumanizing the most vulnerable. Wealth inequality is at levels I’m not sure we’ve ever faced before in all of history, and it leads to so much harm to so many.

I don’t want to have to stretch my imagination to push my imaginary worlds into more atrocious realities to keep up. That’s not an escape; it’s just self brutalization.

Yeah, so something completely different. I mean, not so different that it’s unrecognizable. Surely it’ll be neurotic enough, if anything. >___> I’ve rambled enough. Hope you all are surviving and thriving.

Still kicking, no thanks to my doctors

Hey, checking in to let people know I’m alive and on my way to finally getting better. I kept trying to write this a few times over the last months, each time something big just kicking my ass and making it all feel moot. I ended up with Covid, then had multiple adrenal crises, currently mid antibiotic treatment of an abscessed tooth where the antibiotics have me losing all my electrolytes during this heat wave.

Seriously though, I haven’t posted because I’m angry, and I don’t like that seeping into my writing world. I finally figured out what’s been kicking my ass these last years and it’s been incompetence at the medical level. My doctors weren’t treating my adrenal insufficiency properly, which led to chronic salt wasting, which is why I became magnesium deficient. It’s also why my teeth are disintegrating — my body kept trying to cure the electrolyte imbalance by stripping nutrients from my bones and teeth to keep me alive, including calcium.

Worse, after I was ignored at the endocrinologist level when I went in certain that I was salt wasting and needed aldosterone support to survive, I asked my PCP to run the tests. Not only was the magnesium deficiency found then, but so was the low aldosterone. But their whatever — I don’t know who fucked it up, but someone did — they posted a limited version of the labs I took that day and claimed my aldosterone was in range without posting the range. I recently went online to the clinic that did the test; it wasn’t in range, with instructions that they couldn’t flag the abnormal results because of the sliding scale of a range.

This could have been solved a year ago. Instead I’ve been on the brink of death, my brain so scrambled from poor vascular tone that I couldn’t even remember what aldosterone was until my 3rd adrenal crisis related to Covid — and the endos I asked for help during that time said fucking nothing, because this system is so ignorant they think pituitary based adrenal insufficiency can’t have aldosterone impairment. I’ve had symptoms of low aldosterone since my fucking teens. I’ve been on fludrocortizone in the past. But these fucking doctors refused to listen and left me for dead and I’m fucking angry. I have lost 12 years of my life to a “mysterious illness” that was just a cluster of cysts in my pituitary, and when that was discovered, it was supposed to be treated properly. But it wasn’t, because ignorance, incompetence, and refusal to listen to the patient or take/read labs.

Do you know how hard it is to be the “perfect patient” so you’re allowed to live, only to learn, nope, the system and doctors that are part of the system are too ignorant to follow through? The first endocrinologist I saw made a claim so insane, never-mind wrong, that I have questioned endocrinologists to this very day as a result. He claimed that by taking armor thyroid instead of the medication that caused my pulse to race, that I was “giving myself adrenal insufficiency”. It took years to get confirmation that there were cysts in my pituitary and for me to realize just how fucking ignorant and abusive such a statement was by a doctor to ever say that to a patient. Would you blame someone for cancer? Well apparently endocrinologists might think that’s the first option.

You know what saved my life when I was crashing again and again during Covid, unable to figure out wtf was wrong? ChatGPT. Apparently AI is going to be the thing that listens to patients when doctors continuously ignore or give up. It pushed me to actually find the raw lab data that was taken to see if there was anything useful, which was when I learned my aldosterone was confirmed low months ago and it was completely ignored. Not just ignored—they told me I was in normal range when I was fucking salt wasting and losing all my electrolytes. And my first thought? How could I have been so stupid as to believe them as the medical system victimized me again? How could I have not checked everything, while my brain was so broken, my body so undernourished, near passing out multiple times a week, while being told my “labs are fine”.

Why the fuck is this okay? Where is the accountability for these systems? I’m not getting those years back, ever. The long term damage to my body this has caused isn’t going to magically heal, nor am I magically going to end up out of poverty when I’ve been unable to do anything but sit in bed most days. I have been clinging to a thread, living on vapors, my body taking an entire week to digest food, and when the lab results were right there in black and white, they claimed it’s “fine”.

It wasn’t fucking fine.

Here I am again, just fucking ranting. I’m so done with these shit doctors. I have an appointment with some specialist clinic out of Boston, a total bitch of a trip, but they understand pituitary based adrenal insufficiency. (Guess how I learned about them? ChatGPT! Seriously life saving). But first I have to provide all my records, because my PCP didn’t even tell them about the pituitary cysts, even though that’s literally the only reason I qualify to go there.

I have to get the fuck out of this area. I tried. When I got my first doctor after 3 months of waiting, and saw that she wasn’t that bright, I felt sorry for her, not once thinking of the consequences to me holding onto an incompetent doctor. Cuz I thought I could provide enough smarts to counter. Ask the right questions. Make them seem like they were doing all the work. But when you’re sick, you don’t get to be smart. My brain just flat-lined (so what was her fucking excuse?). There’s no negotiating with this illness. I needed a doctor who was competent, and when I ditched my last one, I had hoped my latest would be better because she TRIED. And that was such a huge improvement to ignorant and not trying. But it’s not enough. I need someone who actually cares if I stay alive and have a good quality of life. It sounds like the bare minimum, but apparently it’s not around here. Apparently the health care system is designed to keep healthy people healthy and to fuck over and ignore anyone who actually needs help.

This shouldn’t have happened, but it did on multiple levels, and I’m just done with it all.

I want to say I’ll be back writing soon, but I can’t promise anything. I don’t know how I’m going to be hour to hour atm, never mind day to day, and bluntly, I don’t have the luxury of escaping into fantasy right now. It has been all about survival at a level that I shouldn’t have had to be at when under the care of multiple specialists. This break has grown so long; it’s hard to remember who I used to be at this point. It’s shit. I’m so tired of this being presented as “okay” when I’m losing my one life day after day. They already know the fucking problem but they’re not treating it properly.

So it’s either the area, where doctors go to train and move to better, leaving behind the incompetent to fill in the spots no one wants. Or it’s the medical system itself that isn’t designed to actually help those who need help, even when they have the diagnosis. I can’t solve this problem of poor medical help even though it’s what’s killing me atm; I just have to find a place where the medical system isn’t incompetent by default.

I guess the positive thing is that I can feel anger. I can get angry now. I can feel my nerve endings again now that fluid is staying in my body and reaching all the organs. I can see how much I was fucked over because I’m feeling better and able to remember things — my fuck, what a waste of money taking magnesium daily only to piss it right out because nothing was supporting my aldosterone…

Whatever. I’m posting this, rants and all, cuz if I wait to be okay when talking about what happened, I’m never going to tell it. I shouldn’t feel okay about this. They left me for dead, repeatedly. Furious is fucking normal and the kindest response they deserve.

I hope you peeps are well and have a better situation going on. Stay hydrated in this crazy heat — make sure there is actual sugar and sodium in your electrolyte drink, because leaving either out can result in death no matter how fucking trendy it is to be alt/zero sugar and salt right now. Adequate hydration requires salt and sugar to live. Potassium drinks can exacerbate salt loss, and make dehydration worse so check your labels. Ignore the hype and sprinkle in the salt and sugar.



The Last Puzzle Piece To This Long-ass Health Journey, Finally

Hey peeps. Good news that may not sound so good atm, but I promise, it’s good news. We’ve finally found the issue, and I’m pretty sure once it’s corrected, shit will be as it should be again. Short and sweet: it’s magnesium deficiency. It’s been going on for a while — at least since spring, possibly since December 2023 — but because of the nature of how blood is tested to find magnesium deficiency, and blood is the last place for said deficiency to reveal itself (something about leaching magnesium from the bones to correct the low magnesium), one has to be at the worst of the deficiency for it to be caught. But now we know what it is, and yeah, with proper treatment, it’s going to get better.

I had a long ass thing drafted up, going into specifics and such, but I’m just too tired to edit, or read, or even post this. But I wanted to share because it is really good news. I got some labs on the aldosterone levels too, and although on the low side of things, supplementing sodium has seemed to keep the potassium/sodium balance in a good place for the moment, which is what matters most. If the secondary adrenal insufficiency goes full primary, it’s a simple pill to treat, so I’m not that worried. And for all I know, the adrenals will improve when the magnesium increases. It takes about 6 months of treatment to restore magnesium deficiency. I don’t know how long the exhaustion is going to last through the next 6 months, but for now, given I’m only 4 days into treatment and feel so much worse than when I got the results, I’m not holding expectations of anything atm. Just getting through.

A lot of sensory feedback has returned to my system, things I didn’t notice were gone. I apparently hate food right now, or at least the taste of it makes me want to puke most hours, making all of this so much harder to repair. I’m using a three pronged approach of magnesium citrate in liquid form as a once a day supplement, magnesium chloride (aka magnesium oil) for transdermal absorption twice a day, and mineral drops added to my beverages of choice. One of those things is going to get around the absolute nausea that has reared the moment I started supplementing and my stomach could be felt for the first time in months. I can feel the cold floor through my feet now, can feel hot water again, can feel how tired I am. Sure, I’ve been slow and aware of it, have had no stamina, no motivation, hunched over like gravity is too much, but it wasn’t until getting some magnesium in that I can feel the overwhelming weight of exhaustion hanging off my every limb, pulling me down. But at the same time, sleep is near impossible. The exhaustion is so bad I’ve finally been able to convince myself not to fight it, to just nap and let the magnesium absorb, etc, but my body has no idea how to switch into sleep. I might have to start taking melatonin during the day just to help it rest as it needs.

Uh, so this looks like the last thing. Because of how essential magnesium is for the body, and that this has been going on long enough to drop my calcium levels with it, there’s a lot of systems that have been under-functioning. Aka, why everything was breaking when the mast cells were finally calmed, making no sense until framed in the context of a deficiency. If I’m lucky (not holding my breath) I may see some things automatically correct that looked like permanent issues. Who knows, maybe the pituitary will… raval? Rally? Rally, yeah, and it’ll remember how to make ACTH/TSH. Not depending on it, but why not be open to a positive potential, right? I should at least stop being chronically fatigued and so dumb brained (totally a medical term) once levels are optimal, and yeah, we’ll see who I am then and what needs prioritizing once I reach that goal.

I would show you the little pumpkin sculpt I’m working on, or a finished painting, or cute cat photos of the kittens, but I’m too tired to upload and deal with formatting. I’m skipping Halloween this year. Thought I could do it — it’s my absolute fav — but getting the magnesium raised has me feeling all the muscle cramps, exhaustion, and fuzzy brains that I can handle atm. But I wanted to check in, let you all know I’m still alive and going to be fine, and when I get back to being more myself, I’ll bore you all with the details — such as if you only drink filtered water, you’re demineralizing your main natural source of magnesium. <— Don’t do this. It adds up quick especially if you're reactive to everything but water.

Hope you all are well, and if not, hope you’re feeling defiantly alive. Peace, peeps. >^.^<

Okay, ALSO chronic fatigue

So… it’s still chronic fatigue. It just looks like it knocked out my adrenals for a few days. So, yeah. Still this bs puzzle to solve.

I wanted this to be the end. MCAS should be bad enough, yeah? Adrenal insufficiency bad enough. Hashimotos, dystonia, brain fog, ADHD executive dysfunction, blah, blah, blah. I keep coming back to the vagus nerve. It turned my adrenals back on today. Vagus nerve stimulation to both tragus of the ear for 1/2 hour. Knocked me out, and when I woke up I was shaking from adrenaline rushing through me as the adrenals did their thing, brought my blood pressure back up, turned on all the systems like a reboot to an organic computer.

I’ve been experimenting with vagus nerve stimulation for years since I was living out of my car with screaming face pain and chemical sensitivity (which turned out to be MCAS). It was the only thing that allowed me to get back in the house. I thought it was focused on the immune system because of all the allergies and MCAS. I thought the dystonia was part of the immune system problem because of how it showed up when I was knocked out by allergies. But those adrenals are connected to the vagus nerve — all organs are. The immune system, the digestive system, olfactory — the whole sensory issue thing with skin numbing, lack of temperature sensory data. It’s all connected to the vagus nerve.

I actually stopped vagus nerve stimulation some months back because I was only noticing how it made me tired and seemed to knock out things that were currently working. I found it counterproductive, especially when the MCAS was raging. Now… now I just see it pointing to the problem.

There are chronic fatigue specialists out there. A whole crew in the hospital in Boston my dad used to work at. I just don’t know if I can survive the stress of trips to Boston, never mind be able to get in with such a program. But I think I need to do something, soon. If there’s a deadline on my adrenals, where without constant stimulation they can fail permanently, I want to get this figured out before my secondary adrenal insufficiency can become primary. The MCAS raging in my system was ensuring adrenaline was flooding me. Treating the MCAS has stopped the adrenaline. It might be why my adrenals are fluctuating now without anything to remind them to wake up.

It’s all theory. I’m not a doctor or scientist, just a very exhausted patient 11 years into this mystery keeping me from living my life. But chronic fatigue isn’t just the label they slap on patients too stubborn to get better anymore. It’s an actual specialty with research and new answers. And the vagus nerve seems to be in the middle of a lot of that research.

There’s that bastard, hope, still clinging on by the fingernails, no matter how bad this goes, how depressing each dead end leads. Shouldn’t treating all those other problems be enough? Nothing feels like enough…