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Today I'm sharing a health update with you. You may or may not know that I have several challenges to my health. I've been so sporatic lately with my uploads & I wanted you to know why. If you have fibromyalgia, POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), Portal Vein Thrombosis, Trigeminal Neuralgia, Depression, Anxiey, Familial Tremors or any health issue, you may relate to what I'm sharing. Also, I'm sharing a bit of an update on my -145 pound weight loss.
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Hi friends, I wanted to sit down today and give you a quick update on what's going on
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with my ongoing health issues and to just let you know why I've been very sporadic in posting
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I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it's been one heck of a struggle. I have really been having a hard time with this portal vein thrombosis, which is I have
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a blood clot in my portal vein, the main vein into the liver, and then it also gives blood
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to the spleen and to the pancreas and the gallbladder. So all of those organs are affected by what is going on with this portal vein
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And I got that back in November and it's March now, so it's been quite a while and I did
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have a follow-up CAT scan and that showed that basically instead of the portal vein
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clot dissolving, that my body is making bypass veins, which can be very scary when you're
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dealing with this kind of a health issue. So I am waiting to hear from a vascular surgeon whether they're going to go in and try and
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bust that up and see if they can't get the portal vein to work. But how I found out about it, and you guys can go back and look at my last video if you
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want to on my health, how they found out about it is I was just having horrid abdominal pain
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that felt like somebody had just taken a cinch, like a band, all the way around my middle
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and just was constricting it and it was causing so much pain and I was doubled over and begging
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for pain medicine. And so I got through that part of it and they're treating it now with blood thinners
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And so the doctor that I originally saw said that you have to be on blood thinners for
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a year from the time when you got the clot and then probably like a prophylactic where
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you're going on to a maintenance dose for the rest of my life
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And since the clot itself isn't going away and I still have all those issues in there
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I have to have the blood thinners in order to help my body get enough blood to those
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very vital organs. So I do have pain still but it's nothing like that initial pain
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The biggest issue that I'm facing now and this is kind of where my challenge comes in
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is I can't eat very much. That's what sent me back to talk to the doctor again and he sent me to another specialist
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So the first doctor was a hematologist and the second doctor that I'm seeing now is a
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vascular surgeon. So hopefully he'll have more answers than the hematologist did because all the hematologist
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was looking for is whether or not the liver was still getting blood
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And it is still getting blood and it's still functioning well but it's not getting enough
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and obviously it could compromise it over time. And so not only is the side effect that I can't eat very much but I also am exhausted
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I'm not getting enough blood to the organs that need it. So I'm tired all the time
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My heart's working harder. I already have POTS as some of you know, Posterior Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome
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I had to think about it for a second. Which is where your autonomic and your sympathetic nervous system don't talk right
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I got that from COVID. Thank you very much. It's the gift that keeps on giving
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And so I already have that and already have a lot of exhaustion from that
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I really don't like making these kinds of videos because they're such downers but as
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most of you know that have been with me for any length of time, I also have fibromyalgia
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which in and of itself is nasty. And I also have trigeminal neuralgia which affects this nerve right here in my face
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So I have a lot of issues going on as far as all that goes
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And then last year I had skin removal surgery twice. And that has been such a challenge
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The first surgery where they removed all of my stomach skin, I was so glad that they did that
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As of now, I've lost 145 pounds and that was a necessity to get that big huge apron of
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fat off of my middle because not only was it hurting but it was causing infections and
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all that kind of stuff. So I'm glad I did the first one but the second one was where there was some complications
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with the first one so I had to go back in and do this other thing
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So anyway, I will eventually show you some pictures of how that came out
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I'm not ready to do that yet because what I did to my body in gaining all that weight
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and then losing all that weight and then trying to fix it
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If you have young people in your life and you can help them with their weight and to have a stable average weight, instead of stretching their skin out and then coming back and then
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you never look the same again, boy, I really talked to my daughter a lot about this
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She needs to stay at a healthy weight. My son's too, obviously, but it seems like male skin is a lot more elastic
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I don't know why than female skin. It just doesn't bounce back as well
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Plus, if you had a baby, you'd get pulled out anyway. So you know what that whole thing does
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If you have stretch marks, you know that your skin got so stretched out. It's not going to ever be the same
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Even though I had liposuction and I'm happy with being able to have all of that skin off
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and all of those issues and have a flat stomach for the first time in 35 years
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But I wish that I had just never gotten to that point because it's caused a lot of side
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effects as well. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. I don't like to spend a lot of time bemoaning the fact that I have all these things and
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that I'm in chronic pain. But if you notice that recently I switched to filming on my bed, it's just easier
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All I do now is I pull this ring light that the camera is attached to over and I film
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for you guys right here. So I didn't want to ramble too much, but I did want to tell you that that's what's going on
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I really don't have a lot of answers, but I'm more worried than anything right now about
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that clot and the fact that I can't eat. And I never thought that I'd be somebody that would worry about losing weight
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I always wanted to lose a lot of weight, but right now I'm at a weight where I don't want
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to lose more because now I'm going to start to see a lot of negative effects of muscle
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wasting, sagginess, you know, not just about my skin, but you lose a lot of muscle, holds
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up your skeleton, and then you end up with broken bones or ripped cartilage or tendon
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whatever you end up with. And so I don't want to lose more at this point
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I just want to stay where I am. I'll put a picture right here. This is how big I was
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I weighed 305 pounds at my biggest. And this picture right here doesn't depict that
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It actually depicts me at 30 pounds less than I was because I had to lose 30 pounds before
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I could go in and have my surgery. So yeah, so I started at 305 pounds and this morning I weighed 159 pounds
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Anyway, I just wanted you all to know that so many of you, you come on these kinds of
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videos and I know that you all have so much to deal with
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You all have so many health issues or you have the loss of a loved one in your life
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or you have economic issues or you have depression or there's so much in the world
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And that's why I hesitate to come on here and talk about it. But I do want you to realize that I'm just not another young YouTuber or a YouTuber that
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everything looks rosy for. But I know that everybody has their own unique struggles and I never want to come on here
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and go, oh, poor me, poor me, poor me, because I don't feel that way
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I have a lot of empathy for other people and I see what's going on in the world and
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I see how dire things seem to everyone. And I just want you to know that even though I don't know all of you, and yes, I do have
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100, almost 160,000 followers now, when you comment, that means so much to me
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That's why I try so hard to comment back or at least put a heart next to it so you know
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that I've at least read your comment and that it is appreciated
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Because I know that just because I sit behind this camera and I talk to you, it doesn't
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mean that the channel's success is anything to do really with me. It's all about you guys and whether or not you choose to support my channel
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And so I don't take that lightly because there's thousands of other channels that you could
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be watching and I just appreciate that you take the time to sit down and press play and
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you watch my videos and that you're always there. And you're so lovely and sympathetic and reaching out and trying to help others even
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that are on here and commenting that you can tell are having a bad time
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And I appreciate that. I think that we have an amazing community here and I know so many YouTubers say, I have
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the best YouTube family. Well, I feel like we really do. And part of that is because we've lived life and we love life because of where we are and
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we appreciate what we do get to have because we've had loss and gain in our life
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And we realize that there is nothing that we should be taking for granted and that it's
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precious to be on this earth. And so I want you to know that I'm here
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If any of you want to ever reach out to me, I try really hard to watch my DMs as well
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over on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. So I'm trying. It's just hard to keep up with all of it, especially when you don't feel the greatest
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But I do try to acknowledge at least that you've been here and I do appreciate it very much
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I also want to tell you that I'm going to have a video coming out very soon that's called
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The Ugly Side of Plastic Surgery. And I'm going to be showing some of the things that have happened to me because there's
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you know, like I said, you do damage to your body and then you want it to be back to where
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it was. And guess what? Doesn't necessarily work out that way. So I'm going to be bringing that video fairly soon
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I really want to be an advocate for people to take their health seriously as they're younger
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And I'm hoping that I can reach a younger audience as well as all of my lovely mature
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ladies that I always talk to anyway. But definitely spread the word about that if you get a chance to
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And once it comes out, if you can share that video out like crazy
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I just think that we all need to be more proactive in our health. And we think when we're young that we're invincible and we're just not
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So I just wanted you to know a little bit about what's going on and that I'm good
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But I have been sporadic and I probably will continue to be a little sporadic here and
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there with uploading videos. But I do love you guys and I thank you so much. Everything that I have on today including my clothing, jewelry, fingernails, makeup
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all of that will be listed and linked below as well for you. Hope everybody is doing really well
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And let's get a chat going in the comment section about whatever you feel like talking about
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Let's just chat today. Love you guys very, very much and I'll see you in my next video
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Bye friends
Beauty & Fitness
Obesity
Pain Management
Depression