Dear Darling Ones,

There have been a few curious side effects of having a stroke.

For instance, I no longer need to have coffee every day. I kicked a 20-year caffeine habit on accident. In the beginning making coffee, preparing a cup, and transporting it to the living room was just too much work. This was in the need-a-nap after breakfast days. I kept waiting with dread for the bonkers, all-day unkillable no-caffeine headaches.

They never came.

(Full transparency, I’ve been having coffee again all the time because cold brew is delicious, but I don’t NEED it.)

I lost a bunch of weight, which I have some feelings about that we will continue to explore.

For like two months in a row I slept 8-9 hours in a row without waking up to go to bathroom (alas, those days are over).

Still, even with these positive side effects, I do not recommend having a stroke.

For the record, strokes are the worst and stupid and frustrating and awful.

However. . .
However. . .
However. . .

If you do suffer the great misfortune of having a stroke and racking up $21K in medical debt (the only debt I have aside from my mortgage), I recommend being surrounded by and supported by the most amazing people on earth.

The kindness and generosity showered upon me this week has been humbling & overwhelming.

Not only did 100 people share their money with me,, a lot of them said really nice things.

I have not processed it all yet and so I can’t yet explain what it means to me and how it makes me feel. I’m amazed and dumbfounded and so so so thankful. I feel so unworthy and endlessly grateful.

Thank you so much to everyone who donated, who shared the Go Fund Me, and gave me encouragement. I could cry with love and gratitude for each of you. Fucking Darling Ones indeed.

I’ll start working on thank you cards soon. I might creepily look for your address or you could just send it to me! I swear no nefarious intent. I’m lazy and cannot currently drive.

I love you all!

Jodi

The post Stroke Me Day 93: Curious Side-Effects appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

I’m not going to apologize for the lack of updates because I am not sorry. Instead, I’m fucking depressed and kind of angry about it. The last two weeks have been a struggle and I’m too damn tired to put on my brave face. It’s a miracle that I can be tired at all because it seems like all I do is sleep.

Sleep is the by-product of the light-headed/panic attack cycle that started last week. It’s awful. The attacks are so bad I literally cannot see straight. The other night I was trying to take two of the “as needed” anxiety pills and I had to have BFK give them to me because I couldn’t tell if I had two or twelve in my hand.,

I’ve been lightheaded is long, I’m not sure I AM lightheaded anymore. The panic attacks still happen, though with less frequency.

Everything is garbage. My tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt is weighing on my mind. So is work, and the stuff I can’t get done. My vision continues to a nightmare and, according to the eye doctor, will be for a few months. My Floppy Scoops are super stiff and heavy.

Also? They’ve been fixing the roof on Supergenius HQ since eight this morning. I’m ready to jump out of my skin from all the banging and assorted racket. However, 1469 days ago I started learning Spanish on Duolingo because some Spanish-speaking roofers were having a grand old time and when I could understand someone asking where the boss was today I felt very smug. Totally worth it.

Anyway, I got nothing good to say. I’m miserable, lonely, and depressed. Pathetic.

I gave myself today as one last day to wallow. Tomorrow I gotta try something else because being cranky isn’t helping my mood or my condition.

A poor, unfortunate soul,
Jodi

The post Stroke Me Day 58: Poor, Unfortunate Soul appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hello Darling Ones,

Yesterday, I accidentally blurted out 45 years of fat kid trauma onto my unsuspecting physical therapist. I know she is not “that kind” of therapist, but once the confession got going I couldn’t stop.

I started by apologizing about being a sweaty, panting pile of goo after some small exercises. She shook her head in dismissal, because the apology was unnecessary.

“It’s the fat kid in gym class,” I said. “I get anxious whenever I start to breathe heavily, because that’s when the name-calling usually started.”

She looked kind of aghast. I’m going to pretend it was at the lasting impacts of childhood bullying and not my revelation.

This stroke is a fucking lot, man.

Since I was four, I have treated my body as if it were the trashcan that carried around Oscar the Grouch, a kind of ugly necessity, a vessel the essence of me called home but was ultimately unimportant. Unlike Oscar, I never took any pride in it. I did not love the unloveable.

That probably sounds preposterous, but the internal fatphobia/fat hate runs deep. It’s hard to conjure much affection for a body that brought me so much shame and ridicule, even from people who claimed to love me. This old body of mine has never fit, quite literally. Not in some chairs, all airplane seats, most clothes, and many situations.

Since the stroke all I do is think about my body. Honestly, since the stroke all I think about is me. You’d think writing about myself on the Internet for 23 years means I have long since cornered the market on self-centeredness, but I had not. Not even close. Sister #2 said I should be focussed on myself right now. I think she’s just being nice to me.

Anyway, since the stroke I constantly apologize to my body for ignoring it for so long. Sometimes I still shout at it in frustration because, “goddamnit, why can’t one goddamn thing just be fucking easy once?” That last one said this afternoon while trying to hang my 2023 calendar on the wall. Yes, it’s April. Whatever.

Mostly, I keep talking to my body like a shitty partner trying to get back into the good graces, “Baby, I’m gonna do better. I promise. I’m gonna pay attention this time. I’m gonna listen.”

I have to listen, because I’m not ready to die.

Since the 2021 winter of loneliness & awfulness, I thought I was okay with dying. I really thought I was okay with it when I turned 50 in June 2022 and a bunch people I loved died in the last five months of the year.

However, sitting on that bed in the ER after all those men didn’t believe me,* I did not want to die. In fact, I was kind of pissed off that I was gonna die.

So here I am, doing my best to stay alive while healing my brain and my soul and my relationship with my body.

I’m so glad it didn’t kill me.

Love,
Jodi

P.S. I forgot to tell you my mom & my nurse practitioner congratulated me on losing 11 pounds in the three weeks after I left the hospital. From having a stroke. And getting COVID. I chastised them both, but DAMN. Fat phobia is every where.

 
*I found out after the fact that the paramedics should have taken me to the hospital ASAP when they saw how high my blood pressure was. Instead, they spent 10 minutes lecturing me about how I should go in and get checked out (they didn’t believe I had a stroke either).

The post Stroke Me Day 40: Like Oscar the Grouch appeared first on I Will Dare.

Dear Darling Ones,

A long time ago I had an idea to write about all the different ways you can cry in a day. I was gonna keep track of my tears and then tell you about them. I don’t think I ever got around to it. If I did, keep that fact to yourself. I just had a stroke! I’m allowed to forget some things.

If I did that post today, one of ways you can cry is “6 p.m. on Friday listening to “Danny’s Song” because you’re reading Kenny Loggins’ memoir AND two of the women you work with sent you a $50 Door Dash gift card to make things easier.”

If I wrote yesterday as I intended until I ran out of steam, one of the ways you can cry is “You made chili and it was good.”

For real, I cried in my chili because I was so proud of myself. Making it was so hard. I didn’t expect perfect knife cuts, but chopping vegetables with my shaky arm was weird and took forever.

My brain cannot stop the inner-monologue that comes with a limb that doesn’t follow directions. There’s a lot of “fuck,” “what the fuck,” and “are you fucking kidding me?”

Opening cans with a manual can opener was also surprisingly difficult.

Eighteen days in and I’m still learning all the ways I wildly underestimated how this would impact my life. And I don’t even know the financial ramifications yet.

I also wildly underestimated the guilt. I feel wretched for making people worry. I feel as though I betrayed everyone by not taking better care of myself.

I feel bad that I haven’t properly thanked people who sent something or offered to help. I feel bad for not telling people how they can help (there is a Support section in the sidebar that’s the best I can do).

Mostly, I wildly underestimated how many people care about me. It’s a bit overwhelming and unexpected. I don’t often feel particularly worthy, especially now that I betrayed everyone.

I’m so fucking grateful and thankful. I’m glad y’all think I deserve it.

Jodi

The post Stroke Me Day 18: Wildly Underestimated appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

The other day I made my favorite soup, pasta e fagioli, and focaccia for dinner.

This was the first time I ever made focaccia. While I love all kinds of foods made using yeast, making those kinds of foods is not my favorite.

Yeast requires faith and trust, and I hate those things.

Yeast turns me into someone who prays to a higher power, another thing I am not a fan of.

Yeast is a finicky bitch and you don’t know until much too late if you fucked it all up.There’s no second chance or do-over, and second chances & do-overs are what I do best.

I was pleased as fuck when I ended up making the best focaccia ever in the entirety of time and space. Who knew I was so talented?

No joke, that shit was (is, there’s still some left) delicious. The entire time I was eating my soup and bread I was chanting in my head, This is so good. I am so happy this is so good.

I needed a culinary win. After talking about it for 55 months, I finally made the feijoada with the fancy Rancho Gordo beans and it was a giant bowl of fail, at least to me. BFK loved it.

Anyway, as I was enjoying my soup and the best focaccia to ever focacc, I kept thinking about what I would write about it. I was ready to post a picture while steam was still rising off the soup.

But, as you can tell, I did not write about it right then. I told myself I did not have to be doing something every single minute of every single day.

It was difficult, Darling Ones. But I forced myself to just sit there and enjoy the soup, to be content by the whir of the dishwasher, and to be okay being the only one enjoying this moment.

Whether or not anyone knew about my fucking excellent focaccia did not make it any less excellent. Did I need someone to bear witness to validate that I made some good soup and bread? Was the focaccia somehow symbolic of my worth as a woman, a human and how would people know of that worth if I did not tell them about it?

Umm. . .

I posted a picture on Instagram and tweeted about it ten minutes after I had these thoughts. But I waited a whole ten minutes, which felt like something.

Since then, I’ve been examining my urge to share all the things mundane or otherwise.

Why do I do it? I’m not sure yet. It’s probably some combination of living a small life and having little to write about; humble-bragging about what a great cook I am; being a little lonely and wanting to be seen; and some other thing I haven’t thought about yet.

Yet.

Your essays on the symbolism of focaccia are due Thursday and worth 1/3 of your final grade.

Literarily yours,
Jodi

The post Maybe the Focaccia is a Symbol appeared first on I Will Dare.