Hi everyone, this thing says to introduce myself. Most of you know me; I’m Lauren. I’ve been a bartender for a lot of you over the last 14 years. Some of you have known me since before I could bartend. I can’t say I see a lot of you as my customers. Fourteen years is a long time. I mean, most of you I call my weird sort of DIY family that I’ve built here that have watched me grow up.

Most of you know, this is not an easy thing for me, this whole asking for help thing…

I guess I gotta tell you what’s going on. For the last year, most of you have noticed I haven’t been around much, just kind of disappeared. I’ve been out of work over the last year because I’ve been sick. I now know that I went way too long undiagnosed with diabetes. It happened very quickly from November 2024 to January 2025. In a very short two months, I lost over 60 pounds. Four months after that, I barely got out of bed. I couldn’t go more than a few steps without feeling like I climbed a mountain. Needless to say, I was in no shape to do anything. I was dying. When I was let go in November, before I knew I was sick, I had a little bit of savings to get me through a few months. I figured, you know, I’d be back to work in no time. I’ll just take my time looking for something and I’ll be back to work by February or March. Well, by February and March, I had lost all that weight and I realized something wasn’t right. I didn’t have insurance at the time, so I didn’t go to the doctor. Things just got worse and worse. On top of losing my job and then getting sick, I had to put down Loki. Life was not looking great for me. I finally got insurance and got into the doctor in September. I weighed in at 97 pounds. I’m finally getting the medicine I need. I take insulin every day. I’ve gained just over 20 pounds. I finally feel OK enough that I can start looking for work, but it’s a little late for that. I’m two months past due on rent with another one coming up, I’m on the verge of eviction.

Yes, I’m ready to go back to work. I don’t know if I can start off full-time and gung-ho, but I’m still juggling doctor’s appointments and we’re still working on my medications. This is all still really new, so juggling all this medically to get healthy enough again to work is still really stressful because I don’t know if I’m gonna lose my home.

I don’t know how to ask for help, but I don’t have many options for currently unemployed me with two dogs who need a roof over our head.