The Last Few Months | Losing My Brother | Coronavirus 2020

 EDIT : 1/23/2022 (I have removed and re-posted this several times. It feels vulnerable and like it is too much information. This is one of the most difficult time periods in my adult life and I have decided that sharing is the only thing I can do with this experience. My story is everyone's story.) Original Post late June 29, 2020.

 

We (me and Bear's Beauty) made it through Christmas of 2019. I had just recovered from being sick for a month (still not sure what with at this point, but they are now saying there is no immunity to the Coronavirus, so could have been round one), and other than some supply issue due to the Coronavirus, things were looking good. I had all my orders due out up until the 19th of March completed or on their way to being done in time for me to leave on the 15th of March to finally go visit my Grandma in Florida.

March 15th 2020 I was supposed to go visit my Grandma for her birthday in Florida. I had orders all caught up and production time set at three weeks to give me a week off. Then, they started announcing lock-downs and travel advisories. My gran is an 82 year old with COPD. I also have an inherently suppressed immune system due to my own chronic mono. Those factors combined and I cancelled my trip on the 14th. I was also supposed to go see my god-babies and my aunt in Florida. This cancelled trip also meant I wouldn't get to see them. I was beyond disappointed, but I really felt like it was the right move. I felt in my gut I wasn't supposed to go to Florida. I didn't want to get anyone sick and I was pretty sure I was just recovering from something.

Then, on March 17th in the evening, as I was getting ready to do dishes, my phone rang with an Atlanta number (where I grew up, but I live in Indiana now.) I didn't answer and soon got a text. It was my friend Jonathan. He told me to call him ASAP. He told me that Patrick passed away in a traffic accident on the way home. My heart broke. Patrick is my brother. He was 25 and has two babies (Niko 6 and Nathan 4.) They are my god-babies, the boys I was going to see in Florida.

When the time came for me to leave Atlanta. Patrick was there. When I came back for visits and when I came back to lay another friend to rest, Patrick was there. When I had a falling out with one of the other guys, he made sure it didn't last, because he knew how lucky we were to all have each other. I was always "Sis", because even though we were all pretty close in age, those boys were my little brothers. It was just my role, I was forever trying to shape and impart bits of wisdom or my mistakes. Patrick was a light, always showing up and telling you he loved you. You never wondered with Pat. 

When I moved to Indiana a few years ago, I left everyone I knew. Patrick was one of the few people I still got to see. He was a truck driver, so whenever he was close to Indy, he would come see me. The last time I saw him was December 2019. We talked about his kids and how much he loved and missed them. The last time I saw him, he was grinning and giggling about something silly he did. He had lit a firework in my office and thought it was hilarious.

Patrick asked me to be Godmother to his two babies. At the time, I didn't grasp the gravity or the honor of the situation. Even Alicia, the boy's Mom, was behind the idea. I was honored and accepted, with hopes I could be more involved with the boys once I had more time.

The boy's mother is young, and now a single parent to two boys, one of whom is on the autism spectrum. She wrote and said she needed me, and she is not one to ask. So, I spent the night crying and then I spoke with my Mom. I have a suppressed immune system, traveling is very dangerous, even when there isn't a pandemic. So, she decided to come with me. She worked hazmat as well as being a nurse for the last 40+ years. So, she would drive and get gas in order to reduce my exposure. We brought actual medical grade masks, gloves, and everclear. Even before the virus, I sprayed everything with alcohol, getting sick is just not an option for me.

This was as essential as travel gets. So, we did so while basically still socially distancing and isolating once we got there. I interacted with the least number of people possible, but was already on an anti-viral protocol and immune boosters.

I also quarantined once I returned home and did no manufacturing during the time I could possibly be contagious or a silent carrier.

So, here's where things got complicated, and why my shop was closed. 

In early April, after two weeks in self-isolation as a precaution after traveling, my Mom and I went to the farm store to get supplies for our literal zoo of a household. While at the store, we both started to get itchy eyes, like we walked through sticky dust almost. I am ever the hypochondriac and assumed it was my over-active imagination, but sprayed my face with sanitizer anyways in a semi-joking manner.  It had been at least five days since either of us had a cough or fever and neither of us had struggled with shortness of breath, just extreme fatigue. As we left the farm store, I noticed my eyes getting itchy around the outer corners.

 Three days later the headache started. Since before Patrick passed away, I had been operating under the hope that I had already had the virus earlier in the year and had immunity. This of course, was a hope, and so I was still being careful and taking immune boosters, like I always do for things like flu season. Because I have chronic mono, a cold knocks me on my butt for at least five days. Even when we went to the farm store, we were wearing masks and I had glasses on, although there is some early research showing this virus can re-infect different mucous membranes. This means that the act of putting the mask on and exhaling with the breath going into my eyes, could have caused me to re-infect myself.

My Mother is a nurse and works at a facility where she is in contact with patients all day. While I remember this specific incident as a possible inoculation or infection point, she does want me to be clear that we could also have contracted it from her facility where several people tested positive around the same time. During our two weeks in isolation, we felt OK. The week we got back from Atlanta, we both had some low temperatures and slight cough and fatigue. But, because we were taking the herbs, we both felt pretty good. Mom did get a test and it came back negative, but her doctor said there were a ton (1 in 3) of false negatives and that with her symptoms she should stay home.

I started to get increasingly sicker with more and more symptoms. The shortness of breath and fatigue were made worse by the way the anti-viral works with your red blood cells, almost making you borderline anemic as well. As long as we took the herbs every three to four hours, symptoms were minimal. I had some shortness of breath, but with my asthma and anxiety over the virus, it was to be expected. I spent the week resting as did Mom. At the end of this third week,  needless to say, both Mom and I were getting stir crazy. Not being able to work for that long was beyond stressful. By the end of this third week, we were both feeling better. There had been some fever stuff, but most of it resolved with the herbs. At the end of this 21 days mom returned to work and so did I. 

The virus causes low oxygen and this alone makes it tough to remember some things, just because my brain was really really foggy. Around this time, as I was recovering it was spraying season in Indiana. The farmers around me started spraying weed killer by the hundreds of gallons in the fields surrounding my house and well water.

Around this same time, about a month from when Pat passed, so April 17th-ish, Mom stopped taking the anti-viral protocol I had her on. (1/22/2022 Edit : I am not selling anything, happy to share the protocol I used for severe symptoms. Artemisinin 1000-3000mg per 4 hours with Iron eight hours after last dose, DMSO to push, Colostrum for immune system, CBD and Turmeric for inflammation, digestive enzymes for inflammation. More incoming with updated post, but message me if needed.) We live about 20 minutes from the nearest ER and it takes an ambulance 15-30 minutes to find our house in the country. Because my brother is epileptic, I have always kept myself pretty well-versed in first aid and emergency treatments. I knew that I could use DMSO to push another medication through the system if I really needed to. Mom had stopped taking the Artemisinin the night before. Usually, like for the last several weeks of quarentine, she would come over to my side fo the house early in the morning and we would visit most of the day. Even once she started back to work she should have been up and around the house. She was not. I found my mom at the top of the stairs with her lips slightly blue, nail beds pale, and she was very confused. Sitting in her chair, breathing supplemental emergency oxygen we had, she was still not improving. So, I gave her a dose of the anti-viral (Artemisinin) along with several tsp of DMSO. Within minutes her color was better and she was getting oxygen again. This is when we learned the most dangerous part of this virus. You could go from fine to not breathing in a matter of minutes with no obvious trigger, almost like critical mass had been reached and so you started showing symptoms again. This was also when Mom became an advocate for Artemisinin and started telling our friends and family about the possible aid. It was not perfect, but cut down on severity from our own experience, and without a vaccine, it was something.

Mom started taking the herbs again and continued into early June. Adding a smaller dosage into her weekly regime moving forward for maintenance. Mom went back to work, but soon realized the fatigue from the virus was still a concern. She wasn't able to walk around and be on her feet all day, like she was just weeks before. She ended up taking a third week off. 

Somewhere in here I started to get really sick. I had started to get chills and nausea along with extreme fatigue and fever. I started having what I can only describe as "fits" where I would get freezing cold and unable to breathe and go into the shower fully clothed, wrapped in a towel and just sit close to the water to try to breathe and not throw up. The nausea was pervasive. By the last day in Indiana I couldn't keep anything down and had been taking anti-nausea medicine like tic-tacs. I watch a lot of True Crime. If it was on any of those, you would have thought I was being poisoned. This was different than the kind of sick i was with just the Coronavirus. Maybe I had it still, or the end of it,  but I hadn't had ANY of these symptoms before they sprayed glyphosate in the fields around my house. That week I was in urgent care twice, during a pandemic when my germophobic self didn't want to leave my house. I was supposed to have a cardiac appointment as my heart was erratic during one of my visits. They kept me for hours at the hospital before I was stable enough to leave.

I couldn't breathe if I left my front door. The mask seemed to help with the pollen and the spray, but my lungs were not yet recovered from the virus. After the second urgent care visit, I was at a crossroads. Something had to give. I couldn't wake up and feel this way every day, and if it was the spraying causing it, it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. So, my Mom made the only move she could, she applied for a job on the Navajo reservation, a process that usually takes several months. 

Almost overnight she was recruited. This was the same time that I was at the point where I was not working and spending all day in bed. She basically made the executive decision that we needed to get me away from Indiana and the chemicals in our air and water, to at least see if that was a contributing factor to my declining health. I had gone from working 18 hour days on my feet to not being able to make food without getting worn our. This all happened in a matter of two weeks and I was pretty scared. As someone who always has a solution, nothing I was trying seemed to be working and I was not getting better. My Mother and brothers packed the studio while I slept. They wrapped all my tiny glass bottles individually and took such care to make sure things got transported safely. Mom took the temporary position on the Navajo reservation and we had about 72 hours to pack and get there for her work to start Monday.

I honestly don't remember much of the last week. I remember not wanting to go and feeling rushed. I don't like change and moving my entire life cross country on the hope that it will improve my health is the epitome of a change I dislike.  Fortunately for those around me, I was too lethargic and tired to protest too much. I am beyond grateful for my family and for them stepping in to get me somewhere safe even when I wasn't ready.

It took two days to drive from Indiana to Arizona. As we crossed the Oklahoma border, out of farm country, I started to feel better. I was relieved, but still exhausted and by the time we arrived in Arizona, there was no time to rest. We had to unpack and set up the household. It took a little over a week to set up the Bear's Beauty temp space. Being sick and the move caused some order delays, but even before the move, there were some immense supply delays. Part of the reason I was OK with moving was the immense supply delays. Things were already taking months to arrive.  I could forward many of the items I ordered a month prior without much production delay.

Then, without throwing Etsy under the bus, there were some issues with my Etsy shop and they put my store on vacation. The fault was mine, I had fallen behind on messages and had several orders that were supposed to ship from Indiana that were now shipping from Arizona. I hadn't been able to message the hundreds of customers about what was going on and unlike if this was my own page, I have no access to any kind of mailing list. So, while I only have my phone internet out here, it has been difficult to message each of the 500 customers affected. There are those customers who message me multiple times, creating a back up in the inbox, pushing other messages further down. I tried an auto message, but found that confused or upset customers more. So, for a little over a month I had no shop and no source of income. I was still making orders that had been placed before I got sick and still waiting on supplies ordered months earlier. While I have been working through messages, I focused on making product.

When we got here two months ago, we were hopeful that we could get traditional wired internet. It has been two months and they are still closed due to the intensity of the outbreak here on the reservation. Within a week or so of us being here, just into me sending out the 500 orders that I had (five times what I usually have in a month) the post office where I live stopped taking packages for almost a month. They were struck by lightning during the same storm that started all the fires in Arizona. So, I was now driving one to two hours to the post office, one way. It has been a challenge to get ingredients, labels, and containers. I have been working every day since we arrived in Arizona to send out packages and answer messages. The funniest part of the huge surge in business, is that it came at the worst possible time. I had been working since 2013 to blow up my skincare line, and now when I was without internet and away from supplies...it was popular...of course LOL.

The thing is, if this situation taught me anything, it is that you have to take care of yourself, your health, and your family. No matter what I do, someone is going to be upset and I cannot live and die by my Etsy reviews. I handmade this skincare for you guys, and while I am working on scaling the batch sizes, the products are a labor of love. As someone who is so very sensitive to chemicals and who has seen so many changes as the burden on my body has been reduced, I feel even stronger now about making Organic and transparent skincare. While I may have had some orders that went out later than planned, they went out. I managed to get my entire business up and running in a new state withing a few days and processed five times the usual orders in a house with crap plumbing and no internet that is smaller than my studio and housing three adults. I managed. It has not been perfect, but I have learned a ton of lessons and ways to improve the way I do business and bring my products to you. I have managed to adapt in a world where I was not sure I would have income a few weeks ago.


The boys are down a parent and I take my position as godmother very seriously. Patrick took them to the aquarium, the park, just out and about. He wanted them to see the world and have every chance to be themselves. He is no longer in a position to do so and their Mother as well as his family are amazing people I cannot wait to support. So, I am moving some of my operations to Georgia, more than likely the CBD products specifically. I want to be able to be in Georgia as well as establish a business closer to where the boys live. I am someone who shows up.

I am also someone who sees that the way I am doing things is not working. Bear's has grown beyond my capacity to keep up. It is time to find a way, hire some help, and grow to meet the demand. I want to share my creations with the world and I want you guys to have a great experience. As of now, we have a permanent position on the reservation. We are looking for a house as we speak. We are also prepping the Indiana house for sale. This has been a whirlwind of change, but has proven to be much needed. After losing Patrick, moving, and then the shop drama... you guys have been there. Emailing, dm'ing, and messaging me words of kindness and hope. As I work through the messages and some of them say things like "I bought your sob story." or "You lied." I come to the messages of love and gratitude. You guys get it, get that while I didn't handle things perfectly, I am handling them...that this is face wash we are talking about. That my life is allowed to happen as well as skincare. I hate that customers have been upset, that product went out late, or messages have been missed. But, I cannot go back. I can only keep moving forward and trying to correct the mistakes made.

Since July of 2019 when I got my concussion to now, my life has totally changed. Things I thought i would always be able to count on have changed without warning. I have lost people I love, my own health, and my financial stability. But, I have learned to adapt, to change, to move past my anxiety and fear. I started a whole new life in a place that I love and I feel healthy in. I have my family and the chance to show up for my godsons. I have my little Etsy shop, one star reviews and all. Next time, I will do better, building on the lessons learned. I have taken time to heal, to process, and to rebuild before coming back.

2020 has been a year of trials. The stories of struggle and tragedy I have heard from others makes my ordeal pale in comparison. The Navajo people alone have suffered with almost a third of the population infected. With many not having running water due to Federal laws preventing them from digging wells on the land, the issues with disease control abound. I am hopeful that with time, I can find ways to help. For now, I am making skincare, answering messages, and building towards the next step.