Help fend off the void for another month

The last three and a half years have been a rollercoaster of medical diagnoses, covid, and mental health challenges.

At the tail-end of 2017, I started having intense headaches. When I went to see my GP in January 2018, he told me it was 'probably stress and anxiety', since I was in nursing school. The headaches got steadily worse until May 2018, when I started lost some peripheral vision in my right eye and went to my optometrist. He referred me to an emergency ophthalmologist, and I was told that I had +3/+4 papilledema in my eyes. My last semester of my nursing degree -- my practicum, which was supposed to prepare me for my nursing career -- was in reality a battery of tests and medication adjustments. I limped through my practicum, just barely. I got through my nursing certification exam, just barely. I looked for a job for months somewhere that was related to my practicum, but the only place that would take me was an emergency room, and only at full-time. I worked 12-hour rotating day-night shifts for three months before I burnt out, heavily.

My relationship, which had also been pressured from my illness, finally crumbled. I moved out on my own with minimal savings, and started a high-stress job working post-anesthesia. I met a wonderful partner, and I took a job doing flu shots that fall to try and get into public health. I got into yet another full-time job that I couldn't keep up with just before covid hit, and my attendance record was spotty. I used vacation days as sick days, and when my year of contract was up, I dropped to casual. Alberta continued to show its ass with regard to how badly it treated its nurses and its people during covid. I found out that, likely since 2018, I've had Lupus (which is why, despite my neurologist telling me that all my metrics 'look great', I've continued to have fatigue and pain). My partner and I resolved to move to BC, a not so small expense, for my mental health. It put a physical boundary between my emotionally immature mother and I that I've sorely needed for a long time, but it also put financial strain on someone who was already financially strained. I tried again to get a 'normal' job. Three days a week, I told myself. Doable, I told myself. But it turned out that 8 hour days were actually 9.5 hour days, and that the job I was hired for wasn't the job I was doing. I lasted two months.

So, that brings us to today, and to this.

Friends, I'm not okay. I'm so, so tired.

Those of you who have been on the treadmill of medical and mental health know this is an exhausting cycle. It's been almost four years, and I'm still running up against wall after wall. I have a work-from-home job with a researcher that I'm grateful for, but the hours and pay are sporadic.

It's my birthday this month, and what I'd really like is to be able to pay my bills and breathe for a little while. Your donations will go to such fun and exciting things as: wrist braces, heated blankets, and food.

Thanks for listening, theydies and gentlethems.

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Banner art by Marilyn Chin.