The Rest Of The Story : The Last Year Of My Life

 

It is finally time to share the next part of my story. The last post is here, you can totally go read it. It talks about moving from Indiana to Arizona to the Navajo Reservation with my family during the plague of 2020. I detail my journey with long haul and my auto-immune issues. I took my first solo trip cross country to visit friends in Atlanta and decide if I should move back there. I left off at the top of a mountain in Colorado, starting to deconstruct some pretty toxic family patterning and programming; learning to be less judgmental of myself and others.

In 2021, Mom was doing K*vid response on the reservation; I worked from home and kept an eye on my brother who has epilepsy; making sure he took his medicine and had a person on hand for help or questions. I had been really struggling to maintain my business with the postal and internet services available on the reservation. I was dependent on Mom for most things, even rides to get groceries. It was frustrating for me as an adult and she and I spent a lot of time clashing. Naturally, two grown women are not intended to live in a small space like that for long periods of time. We were in a small house with a lot of dogs for over a year. The situation wasn’t ideal for anyone, but everyone was making sacrifices for one another. Now, I can look back and see how that pressure cooker brought us closer together and helped us work through a lot. I was really at a point in early March of 2021 where I wanted to move back to Atlanta. I was frustrated with my family and wanted to get away from them and back with my friends. My trip to Atlanta brought me a lot of insight and a lot to consider about my life as a whole. I realized that I needed my family right now and that they needed me. I realized the value of our relationships and willingness to show up, always. I decided to stick with my Mom and brother and work with them to find a way to move that was best for everyone and put me back on my feet.

My family and I had some tough discussions and worked a lot of things out over the next few months. We finally started putting an actionable plan in place to move and mostly decided on Cortez, Colorado.  I needed some supplies for Bear’s that I couldn’t get by mail fast enough to fill an order. We found Cortez by chance. It happened to have a few health food stores that stocked what I needed. The first time we arrived and passed a buffalo herd that reminded us of growing up in Buffalo, Indiana; we felt like this place was magic. With my immune system and Long Haul, we tried to minimize exposure as much as possible. Cortez became a second home, and quickly a top contender on the “where to move in the Southwest” list. Mom would be driving to the job on the rez no matter where we moved, so we tried to keep it within a three hour drive. It was important that she be able to get home quickly if need be, and that we be close to a good hospital for my brother.

We started trying to find places to move. We had a deadline to be out of the house we were in and were looking specifically in Colorado. The next few months we looked for houses as we packed and moved stuff to storage in Cortez. There were a few houses but nothing that we loved or that had enough space. Finally in August Mom convinced me to come with her to see a house on the edge of town with six acres and a bunch of buildings on the property. I knew as soon as we got there that it was the place for us. The address was even my lucky numbers since high school. The place was a bit run down, the previous owner had some health stuff and the property needed a lot of upkeep. It was a hay field and the owner used to own a few hundred acres of hay, selling it off a little at a time. The sale of the house just worked out, we had just enough to get it and afford it. We bought the house in September of 2021 and moved in October 2021.

I stayed on the rez a little after Mom and Jake went to work on the house. They worked on the floors and the fences while I stayed with the dogs on the rez for a week or two alone. Finally, November of 2021 the caravan of dogs made its way from Chinle, AZ to Cortez, CO; Gunther, Hildie, Bear, Freya, Chloe, and Lilly Potter (a pup I found covered in ticks at the post office before we left, lucky girl) and then Ghost, Bella, Little Bit, and Luna as well as Zelda, Albert, Polly, and Ruxpin the cats, with Beatrice the Chinchilla bringing up the rear of the zoo. It was quite the two and a half hour drive, but we made it.

The plan initially was to get a tiny house for me and I would set the dogs up with a space in the workshop (30ft x 40ft) that would be mine. The building itself is corrugated steel on a concrete slab. The tiny house we ended up getting for me was 12ft x 24ft made out of wood but unfinished. There was an insulated option for $1k more but it would have taken a few months longer. At the time, there was no way for me to stay in the main house. All the rooms weren’t finished and Josie was already staying in the guest room.

My stuff was moved into the house’s garage and we started work insulating my house. Even with insulation it was chilly, but we ended up paying for the whole tiny house rather than making payments, like we had planned. This ate up all the money we planned to use on the interior. There is a law in Colorado that you can’t live in a tiny house you are making payments on. So, Mom paid for the house with the idea that I would pay her back over time and the house would be mine long term. Very early on the dogs (mine) were freaked out being in the big metal building, and they weren’t wrong. It was also cold, so I ended up bringing the six dogs into my tiny house. The house was split, mind you, it is unfinished and just has partial insulation and plywood floors at this point. My tiny house was about a few hundred yards down the driveway on the other side of my workshop from the main house. The pups are crate trained and even though I made a fenced in area for them out the back door, they were too intrigued by the cows and coyotes and kept knocking over the fence. I eventually start letting them out to potty and keeping them inside to keep them safe. This is a time period I like to refer to as the dark period. I was cold, my dogs were unhappy and spent a ton of time getting acclimated to each other and the space, they woke me up all night and I couldn’t get more than an hour of sleep at a time, there was no power or water, the electric kept blowing, and I had to hike to use the bathroom at the house.

I was so sure that getting off the reservation would solve all my problems, but this had brought a whole new set. I had a ton of long haul and residual symptoms. I was getting sick every month, almost like clockwork. I was sure the black mold we were being exposed to in the house in Chinle was part of the problem and hoped that leaving the dust and mold would help. As fate would have it, part of this property is mad dusty, like it’s on a bed of bentonite clay. Guess where I set my house, not knowing? LMAO, yup, that pile of dust. So I was in this tiny house with no power, working out of Mom’s den to make my skincare, spending my night cold and having a lot of the same issues I was having in Chinle. I was falling apart at the seams and starting to question my choice to stay with the family. It would be ten thousand times easier to give up the dogs, move to Atlanta, and just worry about myself and my business.

Mom was working on the reservation, driving the three hours on her weekends, still living on the reservation while Jake and Josie and I managed here. Josie didn’t really want to move out here, but when Mom sold the house in Indiana in October, they didn’t have anywhere else to go. They traveled some, but they also ended up moving here. Mom got them a tiny house as well, smaller than mine, as they were unsure on their long-term goal and really just needed a spot to sleep and play music. Their house wasn’t ready yet, so they were staying in the guest room. Eventually Mom suggested I sleep in the house and see if that didn’t help with my sleep and my breathing.  When I tell you that I felt like a different person after a week of staying in the house, it was crazy. I had no idea how much the dust and dogs fur were affecting me. I had been surrounded by both for years and finally being away from them at night was a huge positive change. Because the reservation has little power and even less running water, the infection rates for Covid were insane. I kept getting sick, it didn’t matter what I did, and it was the way of things the entire time we were on the reservation. I didn’t have insurance and did have an allergy to the shot, so I was in a weird space. I talk about the remedy that helped me stay the course, but there are a ton of options for treatment now. I started to think this was just how my life was going to be, so when I started being able to breathe without shortness of breath and wasn’t tired all day, I was stoked.

A friend told me about Ivr and I tried a round of that using the Flccc Alliance Protocols online. It was the final thing that cleared it from my system. I now take this when I know I have been exposed or when I have symptoms.

I was finally feeling better after being sick off and on since 2020. It was March of 2022 and I had a cold the month before but recovered at normal speed and had no lingering symptoms, I considered myself back to “normal.”

 This lasted exactly a week before I was in the ER with chest pains. I mentioned some symptoms to Mom that she as a nurse recognized as symptoms of a heart attack. I was sure she was overreacting until I told the intake nurse what was going on and she didn’t even write anything down before calling a code for them to come get me. I have never had anything so serious they didn’t do my intake. That night the doctor didn’t see any signs of heart attack, but did find something concerning on the x-ray of my chest. There was a nodule in my lung. Because of my history of smoking, there was the risk it was cancer. His face dropped when I told him I used to smoke and he was adamant that I get it looked at ASAP. ASAP for me was like August because that is how long it took me to get insurance and get to Urgent Care. I spent March to August just changing everything about the way I was treating myself that might be harmful. I stopped smoking anything, zero combustion, not even weed in Colorado. I ate only Organic and Vegan; cut out all cheese except Feta (love) and only drank spring water.

I stopped stressing about everything and tried to enjoy every day. It was easy because Colorado in the spring is epic. We went swimming in mountain rivers, collected our own spring water as a family, hiked in pine trees, broke down in the mountains getting firewood and had to be transported by the sheriff who I am pretty sure has PTSD, tried to catch a bobcat, went to movies, ate good food, hit the farmers market up like an obscene amount of times, and just hung out as a family. Mom quit her job and got one in town so she could focus on the house and family. Josie’s house came and they as well as their partner worked on it and got it livable quickly, I moved my sleeping stuff into the guest room and got a puppy  as well as K*vid the Omicron I believe. So finally in October I get in to see my doctor who gets me to the pulmonologist in Durango. She does blood work to check everything and nothing looks off. The Urgent Care Doc confirmed the thing in my lung hadn’t changed since the ER. This had been good news, and then the blood work made me feel even better.

The final step in determining what was up with my lungs was to get to the pulmonologist in Durango, an hour and a half away. He is apparently the only pulmonologist for quite some ways because even though I started the process in September, once I had a general practitioner, it was December of 2022 before I was able to get an appointment. So for a few months I was just in a holding pattern. I was going through my day to day actions, trying not to worry about my lungs, and making positive lifestyle changes. To be totally honest, I was terrified that I had cancer and was dying. I smoked for ten years and while I quit in 2019, it seemed like my past was coming back to haunt me. I decided to just enjoy my time. I went out more with my family, spent more time with the pups, and let myself rest. I was on the verge of depression, but kept myself as positive as possible. I maintained business as best I could, despite new hurdles in the new space. I just survived. I couldn’t plant for the future or think about dating, I wasn’t going to Sweet November somebody. So December rolls around and a few days before Christmas Mom and I went to Durango to see the doc. The appointment got moved twice, but finally I would know what was up. I had Mom come with for emotional support. She was under strict direction to not interfere or offer opinions to the doc since she has been a nurse for so long. I just needed his unbiased opinion.

We went over to Goodwill to see if there was anything for the house or ourselves that we needed. I found an epic sweater and some Clarks that I ended up scooping up. They were such a good deal I deemed them lucky and my sweater, distinguished. I wore both into the doc like a blankie. The doc was incredibly kind. He eventually ended up nonchalantly telling me that the thing in my lung was no big deal, definitely not cancer. Histoplasmosis is a fungus found in the woods in the South and Midwest. I had an infection in the past and my body encapsulated it in calcium. It wasn’t going to grow and wasn’t cancer. It was such a fast and easy visit, but changed my life. He complimented my shoes on the way out. After ten months of worrying and praying, I was good. I sobbed in the car. I didn’t realize how scared I had been or how detached I had become. I had just felt so tricked, to find this beautiful life and then be sick with something that would kill me? I also had to acknowledge that I had seen an order in life, an overarching plan that wasn’t my own, through this process. I had been so ungrateful and upset about things that were just not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Those ten months helped me understand some things about life that have eluded me for 35 years.

My family was there 100%. My Mom and my siblings just gave me support, whenever possible. I had some weird stuff with Mom before all this and with Gram, but life is too short to hang on to past mistakes. We are all doing the best we can with the information that we have. I learned I have a messed up version of what the people who love me want. I totally planned on leaving if I was sick. Once I got close to passing, I would leave and go somewhere beautiful like Italy to pass. I didn’t want to go visit anyone, thinking it would be easier if I died without them seeing me sick or sad. When I expressed this to Mom, she was like, “Yeah, No. That’s trauma speaking. If you had the option to hang out with Pat again, knowing you would lose him, would you want to?” – Of course. Time in not valuable because there is an endless amount, but because it is finite. The delicate balance of living in the moment and embracing Memento Mori is one I am still working to find.

This helped me embrace what I love, what I want to do with the time I have here and what I don’t want to waste more energy on. I had learned so much over the last few years and there was so much that I could share. Just my time on the reservation alone was a book-worth time (ask Ma Dukes who is writing said book as we speak.) I learned about using herbs and medical studies and educating myself, I found trusted sources, and I tried all kinds of things on myself and the family. So much of this could be valuable to others. My family went from me wanting to get away from them as fast as possible to us having the best Christmas I can remember. The shifts that happened happened because I started to move from a place of love. Not codependent love, but the real stuff where you show up whole and ready to help, not wanting and needing aid. I learned a lot from ten months that otherwise would have been spent isolated in my house and shop if I had my hermity way.

Christmas passed with the family and we just hung out at the house. Mom started applying for other jobs, setting a five year plan to retire and be a farmer. When I tell you that this makes me happier than I have been in a long time, I mean it. Mom has been a nurse my whole life, always taking care of everyone, myself included. She worked her ass off during K*vid and kept working on the rez even after we moved, despite the several hour drive to the house and her having to pay rent there and a mortgage. She finally took a job in town just to have them mess up her checks and she ended up making half what she should. Things at the house were tight, Etsy was messing with my sales because I sell hemp and they are easily confused, and when she found a new position (one offered to her) it ended up being filled internally by a tribe member (ideal.) So when she got the supervisor job offer at a hospital close to the house, that would allow her to have a regular schedule and paycheck, we were beyond happy. It felt like we could exhale.

Jake, my brother with epilepsy, has access to better care here in Colorado and now has an electronic medicine dispenser with an alarm and a fall button. Not only is he able to have more freedom, safely, but I have more autonomy to travel and go places with him or without him. Mom will be close and I no longer have to ask him twice a day if he has taken his meds. It allowed a shift in our relationship from caretaker and authority figure to friends and siblings. The change in our interactions alone over the last month since those have been implemented is epic.

The future looks like a sustainable regenerative farm with solar and wind power and an animal sanctuary with bees, cows, dogs, pigs, and anyone else who needs a home. It looks like growing herbs for Bear’s Beauty and delving more into Loner’s Apothecary (CBD + herbs) while I learn hermetic arts and old-school spagyric medicine from Alchemists in the southwest. I want to get spring water from the mountains and swim in the river while drinking Masala Chai from the local grocery store. I I want to make skincare and herbal medicine for the body, mind, soul, and spirit without the limits of Etsy or Amazon. I want to sell at farmers markets and festivals until its cold and then spend the winter visiting the people I love. I want I life I love and I want the people I love to have the same thing. I might even have some babies, like actual ones, not adopt more dogs J

There is a process in trauma healing known as delayed progression. It basically refers to the drastic growth and personal development that can occur when a person who experienced trauma recovers. I am learning things now that I know some people learned in their teens or twenties and watching my Mother in her fifties develop skills that I see teens learning. It helped me understand how trauma can stunt your growth in one specific area, for some people their entire life. Healing and the stigma attached to being a mess or struggling is way more complicated than we give credit.

I got the virus again in January of this year. It was three weeks in and I had been fighting what I thought was a sinus infection. I hadn’t had the virus in months and it didn’t even occur to me because it was just a runny nose and headache for weeks. Then by the third week it hadn’t let go and the headache was brutal so I got a round of antibiotics. The last day of the antibiotics I still had a headache so I started the herbal version of a virus protocol. Whatever variant this was has been a little butt head. Everyone, even Jake who never gets sick, Mom, Josie and even the puppies got this round with runny noses that eventually turned to sore throats and coughs. It took a few weeks for everyone to kick it and I was still struggling with a cough into this month. I eventually ended up with a bout of shingles when the viral load got too high. I took some Turmeric and Boswellia along with Black Seed Oil and Ivr (I had a does left.) Finally I started to get better this week. The shingles are fading, my breathing is normal, and I think I isolated how I am getting exposed. I also finally figured out that I need to just keep certain things on hand moving forward. Ivr being the main one. Message me with questions on this, please.

Here we are, March 12, 2023. This journey started for me in March of 2020 when I chose not to take a flight to see my Grandma because I was worried about C-19 and then we lost Patrick (my brother from another mother) a few days later on what would have been Gran’s birthday if I had gone to visit her.) I have been so sick I couldn’t get out of bed, scared I would stop breathing in my sleep. I have been isolated for months on end with no friends but those online. I have been through countless bouts with the virus and through it all, continued to get my body healthier, showing dedication to my well being and health that I never knew I possessed. I stayed sober for the last seven years, decidedly some of the most challenging in my life. I never abandoned my commitments or the ones I love. I didn’t give up on myself or anyone else, but learned to let go of toxic traits and people. I have been single for going on four years now, taking time to get my head right and focus on my health. If you asked me four years ago where I saw myself in the future, it wasn’t here. I never could have seen this for myself. I never could have seen the peace that exists in my soul, the joy in seeing my family happy and healed, or the excitement at a future unknown. I know its not cool to be single or alone, but maybe it should be. Maybe if more of us took time to process our shit, we wouldn’t show up in pieces. I am not claiming perfection, but I wish someone had told me at 25 that I could just be single and get to know myself. I wish someone had told me that your problems are there waiting when you sober up and they all stay until you recognize and solve them, integrate and accept.

Spring is coming, it rained and hailed today, so its just on the verge. I have learned a few tricks for mediating the mud and have plans to build some culverts and things to move the water away from my house. My house is finally level after almost a year and a half of having it here but not being able to use it. I have learned that the way the clay and water are here, you need to work with it. My doors that have been unable to shut and had to be taped are now usable! I have a wood stove, because we now know electric heaters aren’t enough for how cold it gets here. I have plans to start building out the workshop next and seedlings to start my garden for extractions and medicine. I am moving into my space as soon as the weather allows and the floors are in and have a five year plan (four now) that ends with me having my own property and the business staying here in the shop. I started an animal sanctuary and can offset some of the costs of caring for animals that need it and eventually get help and build out their area. We are getting goats and pigs this year. Mom is dating and Jake and Josie are both doing well. Life is good and I am so beyond grateful for this as well as the journey, stoked to see what’s next!