“Oh my god. You look so good. You look so healthy.”

Thanks my health journey started in 2016 when I had a stroke from undiagnosed sleep apnea. I relearned how to walk and how to do simple day to day task. Didn’t get to fully rehab as my insurance ran out. So couldn’t relearn how to run. As you could imagine the weight started piling on. This was your visual of me being unhealthy.

But instead of feeling bad for myself I said I need to change. So I started working out, started off slow doing what I was able to and started building myself back to its old form. Halfway through my journey the issues started. Started as stomach pains, must have done too much in today’s workout. Then I started seeing blood when I went to the bathroom, must have been something I ate since it went away. Then I was always tired and bloated, maybe I didn’t sleep good last night and just gassy. Start feeling like my body is shutting down, maybe I just overdid it while getting back into working out again. After three urgent care trips kept getting told I was ok, but luckily my dr did some blood test. Got a message that I needed to go to the ER as soon as possible as my blood levels were dangerously low. Thankfully I went, all the drs and nurses say i was bad but they still couldn’t figure out why. Some more test and they found out what it was. Now it had a name, if it has a name it means it can be beaten right? Well that depends, everyone is different so find out what works for you and good luck.

Things start off good, go back to work, feel good, and it seems like this will be a blip on the roadmap of life. But nope, I wean off the steroids and we find out the medicine they gave me isn’t working. That’s ok that medicine doesn’t work for everyone, luckily for me there’s another one I can try. So back on steroids as we try the new medicine, wean off the steroids and find out the medicine doesn’t work. Repeat about 5 or 6 more times. And now I’ve been on the steroids too long they are damaging my body so I need to get off them ASAP. That’s easier said than done, every time I try to wean off my body reacts bad, and every time it seems worse. We are running out of options, and this is where it gets dark. I feel my body shutting down, I can barely leave the house, I watch my family live their life as I sit on the bed , gotta stay close to the bathroom. I start becoming angry at everything, alcohol seems to be the only happy thing in life. I can’t keep anything in my system, I easily drop 100 pounds in about 6 months, I just keep telling my wife I feel so unhealthy and helpless. I quit work, was tired of it being an issue every time I use the FMLA they originally suggested I sign up for, since they think I should be cured by now. Now the steroids have caught up to my body and now my back is in pain 24/7, like can barely walk or sit down because it hurts. Couple trips to the ER before they realize 3 years of steroids has led to fractures in my back. They tell me there is a quick and easy surgery to fix it, finally some good news. We find my mom deceased the morning of my surgery, an hour before I go under. Surgery was successful, spend some time in the hospital recovering and go home. Pain comes back but in a different spot. Another surgery, the day before my mom’s celebration of life, I was in so much pain and so medicated up it’s all a blur to me.

The back surgeries seemed to have worked and we are trying another medicine, it doesn’t work and I’ve completely given up. I feel like my body has given up too, alcohol seems to be the only thing that makes me feel better and that my body can tolerate. Another failed medicine, what now? Honestly I couldn’t care less, nothing works pass the bottle. Dr says the only option is surgery.

Do the surgery, shit in a bag for now but it’s for the better in the long run. My back pain is back along with a new pain in my tailbone, and now I get a weird numbness throughout my body and restless legs when I try to go to bed. On top of that my levels are all still low so body is weak and I’m tired all the time. But the dr said they’ll look into that for me.

But you’re right I do look healthy now so thank you.

We are being led by a batshit crazy liar who banks on the fact that people are too stupid to see his lies. Its not all on him though, the media does a great job of just letting him say whatever he wants and goes about their day. No surrounding journalist push back, probably because the ones who do get shutdown quickly while their journalistic colleagues just stand there with no back bone to push back. Then they cut back to the news host who glosses over his lies and brings in an “expert”, usually tied to the MAGA movement, to help explain how we didn’t hear what we just heard and how its the left’s fault anyways. Then we cut to commercial, gotta pay those fancy talking heads. Rinse. Repeat. I guess this is what you get when you turn news into a business then consolidate it into two or three major networks which are all owned by billionaires who really really hate paying taxes. But what else would you expect from the “liberal” media.

 I say if the republicans rewrite the districts before the 2026 elections, thus hypothetically gaining 5 seats, democrats should do the same. We tried going higher when they go low, we tried being the adults in the room, we tried relying solely on people to stand up to this administration. None of these have worked it is time to fight fire with fire. It’s time to take the kiddie gloves off and FIGHT back.

What the hell is going on. Is America crumbling before our eyes. Is it too late to turn this around, we have troops being deployed to American cities where our president has said he wants to use these cities as training grounds. There are no “war zones”, there is no antifa group out there trying to destroy the city. I see peaceful protest that usually turn violent because the militarized agents start the violence. Yet the Trump administration is on tv everyday lying about the reality on the ground. And using these false statements to justify snatching brown people off the streets. I don’t think it’s too late but we need to fight back. There are so many ways to fight back there just needs to be more people willing to put in the work. We need protestors, we need independent journalism that reports just the facts, we need people to run for office, we need people to campaign for people running for office, we need people to put pressure on current representatives and senators, we need all hands on deck. This isn’t a fight we can afford to lose.