For those of you who follow my Instagram page you may know that I was recently diagnosed with Lupus and RA and some unknown other issues. I have been extremely ill for the past 2 years and that inspired the rebranding and the name change. Along with my illness I moved into my own 7x17 ft- 30yr old travel trailer needing a place to live after my folks moved away ( I needed help almost everyday and thankfully my folks took me in and took care of me). Long story short, almost the entire thing had to be gutted and fixed in order for me to safely live in it with my pups. Having 0 to no budget, my friend Jack and I reused and repurposed what was salvageable and ready a lot of forums and blogs on how to fix it all ourselves. It was a great thing to learn all about how everything runs etc, but, being ill and trying to pull that all together in a month was harrowing. So unexpected moving/repairing/renovating/ sewing etc etc on top of struggling then and now even more has proven to be a really really difficult balance. One of the joys of owning a vintage fixer upper are all of the surprises you come home to that need immediate attention even if there is no energy to be had. Luckily, knock on wood, the worst things have already happened (you don't want to know about black tanks and leaks) and hopefully now I can start my process back into sewing.
My Lupus not only affects my body skin and joints, it also affects my brain unfortunately. For the past year and a half I have been going to speech and cognition therapy on top of a multitude of "specialists" etc. If you want to know why specialists is in quotes just message me. You have all been so patient and supportive of me and I am so grateful for you all. I never know how I will be hour from hour and yesterday I managed to sew for almost 2 hours!! It was so amazing to finally be in that space even for that short amount of time, to create and make has made me so happy for the past 5 years. I put a lot of pressure on myself in so many ways and my business has seemingly become more and more of a giant to me that I had to figure out, thanks to my therapist, that I was placing to much on it. I have to think about it as a thing that I love, that makes me happy and I don't have to sew for 8-12 hours at a time. I need to tackle it like the old adage, "how do you eat an elephant?", "one bite at a time."
Coming "clean" publicly about my health issues was really a difficult decision for me to make. I have had a really vain issue with my illness that as I look back was really controlling where I would go and who I would allow to see me when I have major tremors, hobble about or stammer my speech. Hell, having Charlie as my support animal in his vest was so hard on me, I felt like I had a massive sign on me saying, "this person needs a dog just to function." I did find that having a cute dog tethered to me helped in 2 ways. 1.) It helped draw the attention away from my tremors when I went out during that phase of my illness. 2.) Has helped me educate other people on what support animals do, and for many they have admitted need on for themselves or a family member and not know how to go about it. I've tried to become an advocate for educating people about the programs available for those of us Chronically ch/ill folks. I have also leaned on others going through the same issues and learning how to advocate for my own healthcare. Anyway, I blabber on and on even more now that my memory and attention span as really bad now and I am sure this blog goes in 7 different ways, I hope they all connect in some way. I imagine Dustin Hoffman in "I heart Huckabees," talking about existentialism and the blanket connecting us all and I hope my words can be like that blanket lol.
Thanks for reading and hanging in there with me as I continue doing what I love through the struggle. If you or someone you know has Lupus, do yourself a favor, and read up on it. We need your understanding and as warriors we need to know we aren't alone. There are so many support groups so reach out and help each other. Lupus Foundation
Kellie
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