Please Help if You Can, Muchas Gracias

Okay, here's what's happening.

I want you to know: I came down with covid in the US on January 18th, 2022, and I thought I beat it.

I did not.

Thinking covid was behind me, I went to celebrate my 50th bday in Isla Mujeres, Cancun, Mexico. I hadn't a clue what was actually happening deep in my chest. 

Despite negative tests, the disease set up camp and began to turn my lungs to popcorn. I thought since the air was hot and humid, in Cancun, that my multiple sclerosis was flaring up and I was having symptoms that are normal and synonymous with having MS in hot weather.

And uh, YEAH, my legs were cramping, my feet were numb, I WAS having MS symptoms... while also having very real scary covid symptoms... it's been a very special immunocompromised person's picnic from hell. 

And then I tested positive. And then I tested negative. And then negative again, and then positive. Meanwhile, things tasted weird, my nails changed color, I was irritable and constantly tired, and I lost my ability to think critically and logically, only my good friends in full understanding that something was seriously off with me. 

This is why the pulse oximeter that measures your blood oxygen is so important: it doesn’t lie, and if it shows low 80s: go to the ER.

“Healed” covid feels like nothing, you just get more and more tired until suddenly you can’t breathe. It doesn’t feel like asthma, it doesn’t feel like the flu or a cold, it’s a silent killer. I am lucky, and I am alive because of my friends and their tenacity and bravery. Hospital Azura was elemental in my healing, despite my shitty Spanish, they are heroes. I was there over a week. 

I was then able to fly back to the US and go directly to the ER where I was kept for two nights at Kaiser hospital on Sunset, and after they detected and healed a kidney injury and gave me plenty of fluids and continued medication for stage gnarly coronavirus, I'm doing very well in my recovery at home. 

I am classified as having “severe covid infection” and must isolate in quarantine until Feb 28th. Covid will probably register and stay in my body for 3 months or more. I will continue to monitor and do my PT and heal like a powerhouse.

After visiting two different ER hospitals, being misdiagnosed and treated with ineffective meds, I finally landed in an excellent Covid hospital facility for eight days. Only through the fierce and tenacious and generous help from my friends and sister-in-law was I able to get the care I needed.

I want to reimburse my friends and family ASAP, and I myself will need to start paying the medical bills that are still, as of now, being sorted out by Kaiser, hospital Azura, and the other hospitals and doctors that treated me. Also, I get infusions of Rituxin for my MS every six months

I can't bartend, I can't work, I can't do much of anything that was once normal for me, it's going to take time, my lungs are still very swollen and very scarred.

But guess what?

I'm ALIVE. 

If you're able to send some funds, my goodness, thank you, and I hope you might find something in my store that will be fun for you to have for yourself or as a gift. All funds from the purchase of my work will go toward my GoFundMe.

Thanks for reading this I’m hugging you and handing you a mimosa.