Today's blog is something a little different! A little bit more personal, no bullish*t. If you're a subscriber here on my little piece of me, you will know these 3 things already;
1) I had a whole REVAMP! I re-branded and I re-styled absolutely everything (which is an ongoing process tbf, stay tuned!!)
2) This very blog concept got me accepted to a Business Enterprise, 3 month course!! Absolutely buzzin' and their is the chance to secure funding at the end yeeeee'ha
3) I had a 10 year milestone last week to celebrate because, 10 years ago on the 11th May 2012, Ya gal was told she would never walk again well, surprise!
So yeah, ya gal has been keeping some cards very close to her double A chest! It's difficult because, going into blogging I really wanted to stand on my own two feet, be seen as "Lauren the sassy gal" and not "the pain gal" As sometimes I feel like having a 'story' like mines, it can overcloud your personality and people don't take the chance to really get to know you and worst of all? They pity you. They like you for what you have been through and not the person those events created you to be- and we wanna see her, right?!
However, when I started this new chapter I promised myself I would include everything and leave no precious stones left unturned- and I meant it! I wanted this fresh start to be not only for the blog, but for myself, too. It's *really* hard being a blogger and keeping things hidden because we're such deep writers and it's in our core to be open, honest and form a connection with our readers/subscribers/besties. I always felt like I wasn't being 'me' and I felt sometimes, that it kinda showed. I struggled to find a "niche" because there was a lot of topics off limits and it honestly made me doubt my future in blogging completely (adios you sinful, terrible thoughts) however, ya gal picked up her make-up bag, dusted off her fake Chanel and slapped more than just blusher on these cheeks honey and seen the (ring)light! So on that note babe, let me spill that god dammmm TEA.
The Pieces That Make Me
To say my life has never been dull... would be quite the understatement. My life has been 50 shades of f*cked up to state the absolute bare minimum here angels!
So yeah, both of these photos represent 2 very different versions of me but will be forever linked. The picture on the left was taken the night before I was told the news we were definitely waiting for, that i'd never walk again nor use my hands again- I mean, at 17 that's a lot. We knew it was coming but it didn't make the news - or how it was handled - any easier. I had suffered with so many health complications from the age of around 12 however, lived a relatively sound teenage years despite this, did all the usual teenage madness! Until around aged 15 when I just started to get unwell all the time and then came a life threatening allergic reaction called Steven-Johnson Syndrome and TENS, which I was extremely lucky to survive.
The year that followed was pretty much just hospital stay after hospital stay and then one time, after a month long hospital stay with various health complications my legs just Gillian Mckeith'ed it on me! Honestly I was like a whale out of water, laying on the floor and I couldn't get myself up. The doctors thought I was perhaps just extremely weak as I hadn't properly ate in a month due to inflammation in my stomach and a septic throat, I mean, it is easy to see why they thought it was likely, I in no way blame them although I sometimes think of how this would be in America where everyone just sues everyones ar*ses and then... I wake up! We have a system where they defend their own and you're complaints are simply hearsay- but this isn't about that today folks! Sorry, my inner political warrior came out (Don't worry she isn't a tory tho)
I went very quickly downhill after I got discharged from hospital and since I was now eating and drinking, it definitely wasn't from lack of food. Soon after I could no longer walk nor stand. I couldn't feed myself nor grip anything and I mean, anything. I couldn't feel my feet on the ground and everything I touched felt like sandpaper, if I even felt anything at all. Crazily, 2 months later I was admitted to hospital because they were concerned about something other than the fact ya gal couldn't even walk anymore! Finally then, they realised something was up and it got the ball rolling - couldn't feel myself rolling it mind you - with my Neurologist, and I was admitted to her department for tests.
We knew I was paralysed without the official diagnosis and even before the tests. I had physio come in to me daily and it was a bloodbath due to not being able to feel my feet on the ground, I could not feel if I was hurting them either which meant my feet where just being dragged behind me and that naturally leads to injuries. We tried to get me to write, I had a pen wrapped in an elastic band as this helps with your grip to stop the pen feeling slippery. 10 minutes it took me to write my own name, badly too! I made deals with the physio "if I attempt this today can I be let out (more like wheeled out ofc) for a mcdees tonight?" Ya gal was a certified hospital hustler by this point.
The 11th came, I had been in hospital for a week now and we were awaiting on my Neurologist to come speak to me about what we already suspected but wanted to know what's next yano, am I Bambi for life? We actually had to contact her secretary to chase her up as mid afternoon we still hadn't heard anything, rude. When she finally appeared you would honestly have thought we sh*t in her kettle, she was not happy. She delivered the news with as much compassion as a parking warden and kept checking her watch whilst basically saying "you will never walk again, nor use your hands again your sensory nerve conductive tests showed your sensory nerves are unresponsive" I told her I had been making slight progress however this was brushed off as "coping" and after she left, I had a 10 minute cry, a panic attack and I thought about you know, all the important things that this might mean and grieved for it:
"Will I ever be able to do my makeup again?"
"Will anyone ever love me?"
after the important stuff, I then went back to thinking about the obvious you know, the fact I actually couldn't walk... what the neurologist had just said and thought to myself "hun, I'll show you what coping is" and began the process of discharging myself from hospital without any sort of proper care plan in place, live for the drama.
My family weren't overjoyed I was discharging myself at first, but if I was doing this, I was doing it at home. The nurses tried to get me to stay but knew ultimately it was my choice and handed me the discharge papers, probably hoping how long it would take me to sign them would be enough time to change my mind! They gave me the referrals for local physio and I was out of there and thus, the true hard graft was set to begin. I don't know where this fire inside me came from, the determination and fight. I just knew I wasn't taking that news, it wasn't happening. I WAS going to walk again, I was doing this. Armed with a wheelchair, a walking/zimmer frame and an attitude to defy all attitudes, we headed home.
First hurdle was, at home my house had a total of 6 stairs to get into the house and about 12 once inside! Outside, my family all had to chip in on lifting my 15stone self and her wheelchair into the house and then once inside, I spent the best part of a year in the living room on the couch. Each day was the same;
Bend all the cutlery to try allow me to feed myself/keep the food on the fork or spoon.
Use the Zimmer frame to try stand and take baby steps each day with my mum pushing the wheelchair behind me incase I feel backwards.
Trying to write the alphabet from scratch and basically re-learning how to write again.
It was hard.
Each step felt like a marathon each day due to the amount of effort it requires when your brain and feet are no longer connected. I can't feel my feet touch the ground, I no longer know nor remember what the ground feels like and that will never return. Sand between the toes? I should have valued thee more!
I lost about 2 stone just learning to walk again that's how hardcore it was to my body! Going from months of literally not taking a single step to doing a lap of your living room length and on good days, back again, felt intense AF. Each day was a tiny step to progress, and we did this without the help of physio. Physio did come to the house once and whilst I am not speaking badly of their skills, the person who was assigned to me seemed more interested in getting me to sit down gracefully than to actually walk again! So we waved them goodbye.
I looked at the stairs, I forgot what upstairs looked like. My room, even the bathroom and a proper sink with cold water rather than a basin! I started small with the first 3 bigger steps at the bottom of the stairs then back down again but one day, I decided I was doing them all. I had my hand fully gripped on to a railing to my right and my mum holding me up with all her strength to my left. I had my determination song playing (Yolanda Adams- I believe) and got to work. We paused the song at the top, which was an amazing tracker of how long it had taken me to reach the top - 40+ seconds - and from there my goal was to beat that time in the days and months that followed and to rely on my mums grip less and less.
Upstairs was an absolute STATE and my ocd was doing summersaults in my brain but sitting in my wheelchair amongst the chaos of what used to be my room floor, I was just so happy to see upstairs, see all my clothes! And oh my god my first pee in a proper toilet?? UNREAL! Don't even start me on how it felt to feel the freezing cold tap water splash across my face, absolute BLISS.
I went from full-time wheelchair user (pushed of course) to zimmer-frame to 2 crutches, to 1 crutch to walking aid commando *no walking aids at all* and that last step was a slow progression to get there, but amazing all the same. I don't remember when that exact day was but it was such a slow progression to get there that it probably just felt natural rather than significant. From there on I began setting other goals:
- Lose weight
- Write better
- Go out myself without anyone accompanying me
- Be able to get myself off the ground if I fell
- Wear heels
- Find love
The walking world was my oyster here! I knew I'd achieve any goal I set my mind too, my determination was stronger than my nerves just simply not feeling. They may have given up on me, but I wasn't giving up on myself. Learning to get off the ground if I fell well, our practice techniques could have been better! My mum, ever the extremist teacher, let me fall or tackled me to the ground and told me to get myself up and I actually did the first time we tried- a mothers tough love, eh. Her - perhaps extreme - mentoring actually worked here and we could give that goal a big fat tick! I joined my local all woman's gym and over the next 2 years lost all the weight and then some.
During that period I made so many friends as I barely had any during my health years, or ones that visited me anyway, and went out and socialised, making up for the years I had missed.
My major concern on that day - may 11th 2012 - besides the obvious, feeling I may never find love, I went on to date a lot, until I finally attracted the kind of person I deserved in August 2019 and honestly, the journey has only continued and is still ongoing! We ended up in lockdown of course which felt like I was going backwards a bit ngl, going back to being stuck behind the same 4 walls felt a little triggering but we made it through.
Between 2020-2022 I ticked further things of my list, things I thought were honestly impossible and out of reach despite my amazing progress:
- I went into a pool for the first time and walked in water, something I thought was straight up impossible! I also got out of water by myself, too.
- I can lift heavy sh*t in the gym, despite not being able to feel my feet push through!
- I did my first pull up, despite the risks of not being able to see/feel where my feet are below me.
- I went into the Clyde well, ran in, and even high kicked! Despite the water pulling against me.
- The most amazing one of all however, was going to a trampoline park and not only jumping on the squares, but even doing some tricks!! Still shook at that one.
And for the 2022-2023 period? Well, I will set even more goals of course, and continue to do so for the next 10 years!
Honestly, it feels liberating being able to finally share my story, I actually feel like I can breathe a bit better. Goodbye imposter syndrome! It's been like therapy writing this, but also really special too by just re-visiting how far I have come. I'm currently going through in-depth genetic testing to see they can find a 'why' for how this happened to me. So far the results have shown no red flags with "known" genetic mutations that can cause something like this, but the tests are ongoing and will be for a few years. They do reckon it is definitely a genetic makeup, but the gene that did this to me, may have actually not even be discovered yet! As for my prognosis on will my kids be cursed with this? It's remains to be seen, unfortunately. I'm awaiting more testing and a panel sit down to try and get to the bottom of my little medical mystery but until then, I continue to thrive and feel grateful for where I am today- ya gal wasn't messing and if this is what coping looks like, I'm 'coping' pretty well.
I'm in my own wee flat. I have an amazing boyfriend who motivates me so much. Of course its easy for him to say I *can* to things, when he wasn't there for when I could not however, I personally feel that also works well as it's fresh motivation as he doesn't know my previous limitations to make him wary. I'm going back to study - kind of - and this blog will be pitched in September time in the hopes of securing funding and who knows where we will go from here? But one thing I do know is, so long as I have this determination burning on inside me-
I'll be absolutely okay.
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