This post isn’t inspiring, and I’m pissed about it.

My blog posts are being weaponized against me…

You may or many not have noticed, that I’ve been quiet… it’s been quite awhile since I posted… over a year, in fact. There is a reason for that – I haven’t felt very inspiring. And I’ve been angry. My year of remission seems like a dream, and I am now awake again to the reality of CVS.

This post isn’t going to be well written or eloquent. Nor will it be “inspiring”. It’s a raw and angry post. I apologize to you in advance for this… I don’t want to share my anger with you – as anger is nowhere to reside… but I have reasons I must do so.

In Jan of 2019 I was excited to tell you about how I accomplished my year of remission and INSPIRE others to find what helps them find remission.

I was able to go an entire year without having a CVS episode, which was one of my most important accomplishments to date. I learned how to PREVENT episodes during that year. I learned that STRESS IS THE KEY and that I MUST AVOID STRESS to the utmost extent possible. No, I cannot live in a bubble, but I must be aware of my situation and my triggers, and I must control what I can control to prevent stress, and accept the things I cannot control.

What makes a person “disabled”? Legally, there are many criteria and I vastly OVER QUALIFY meeting those criteria on paper. Period. I suffer from multiple illnesses both physical and mental. I also suffer real consequences each time I’m sick, including the possibility of death, each and every time. Period. These are facts. Facts that we KNOW about my disorders. We don’t know much about CVS, but we do know that many of us die of heart attacks during episodes due to the sudden and severe depletion of electrolytes from the intense and incessant vomiting which many times cannot be stopped without emergency room intervention, and sometimes even then cannot be stopped with the best medications and emergency care possible.

I AM FORTUNATE that I’ve learned to maintain my electrolytes during episodes without ER intervention. I AM FORTUNATE that I haven’t racked up millions in hospital bills which I can’t pay, like many of us have done. I AM FORTUNATE to be alive. That is a triumph for me and it does NOT mean in any way that I’m NOT disabled. The fact that I make the most of my good days and climb mountains does NOT mean in any way that I’m NOT disabled. The next episode could always be my last, and last breath.

So let me tell you… Let me shout out from the rooftops. I AM DISABLED. I am a disabled person who has been forced to continually place herself in a position to work through a severe disability, and as a result of that, my disorder HAS GOTTEN WORSE, not better.

STRESS is my trigger. Stress, period. But some types of stress affect me more than others do. I’ve learned through the years that I suffer a type of performance anxiety which makes stress from work one of my most consistent triggers of CVS episodes.

I have pushed myself and worked my ass off for over a decade while suffering with this illness, all the while exacerbating it each and every time I am put into a stressful situation. Knowing that each time I had recent episodes, it was because of what I was dealing with at work.

I’m about to share information with you folks that I have been keeping under wraps for over a year. I don’t want to share this information with you… because it is MY business alone… My blog is supposed to be about inspiration and awareness and what WORKS. I’d rather inspire you and potentially help you rather than spew negativity about my personal situation… but it has become necessary for the security of my future that I now speak honestly and openly about things I would rather have kept out of my public blog.

After 1 year and 25 days of remission (ENDING OVER A YEAR AGO in January of 2019 – ) I was hit with 4 of the worst CVS episodes I’ve had in many years. One per month, for the next 4 months. I was right back to my old cycling routine as if that year of remission never existed. That year of remission was like a dream, and now I’m awake and very aware that it was not real, just a dream. I’m living reality now. Reality is constant stress and constant fear of sickness.

A few things of which most people aren’t aware:

1. The end of my remission was directly related to, caused by, and exacerbated by the stress associated with my job position as a Supervisory Public Health Veterinarian for the USDA FSIS and working within an extremely hostile work environment to which I was being subjected daily for over a year, and worsening with time.

I was forced to work each day with a corrupt counterpart who was previously convicted as a felon and served prison time for repeatedly raping his very own daughter for many years. Before that he was dishonorably discharged from military for having sex with his underage babysitter. The USDA hired this person and put them in a position of power over others. He was my equal counterpart. I actually trained him when he was a new hire (I was unaware of his past) and I held years of experience over him. But he thought he had power over me too. The sick and twisted thinking… the lies and manipulation from this misogynistic man were on another worldly level. He was evil in disguise as a “polite” business man. I dealt each day with DRAMA and lies and power trips and / reporting/fixing mistakes- instead of food safety. My repeated attempts to resolve matters as a supervisor were stifled by my own lazy and corrupt supervisor, and I was eventually retaliated against by the rapist, my subordinates, and my own supervisor for my repeated efforts to change the corrupt situation. My repeated reports and investigations of the corruption and retaliation to upper management did NOT result in any improvement. My daily work life was hell. I became severely distressed on a daily basis and then became sick. Not only did my remission end, but both my physical and mental health began to decline severely. I screamed for help there for over a year. They ignored me, they stifled me. No one gave a shit. No one cared. My supervisor claimed to be a Christian, yet not one of her actions exemplified Christ. She is a hypocrite and a liar who abused her power, just like the rapist. Every single day my work life was a living hell. She could and should have helped me, but she chose not to do so. Beginning in January 2019 and by April 2019 my remission was a thing of the past and my health had declined severely. It was a direct result of the hostile work situation.

I haven’t worked in over a year. My doctors pulled me from work in June of 2019 after my remission ended and after observing the detrimental effects those intense episodes had on my physical and mental health. It was obvious to everyone involved that the stress of the job was the main trigger. My medical team determined that if I remained in that hostile work environment I would continue losing all progress I’ve made with healing from CVS and could end up in life threatening situations requiring hospitalization. And since the goal is PREVENTING episodes, not treating them, my doctors made the correct decision to remove me from a known and constant trigger BEFORE I required hospitalization. The decision of my medical team was not to allow me to return to this job and seek reasonable accommodations.

I used up all my sick leave, was donated some leave from generous souls, and invoked the Family Medical Leave Act for extended leave for a serious personal illness. I asked for reasonable accommodations, but the agency refused to offer me any further options. I was officially removed from my position in March of 2020 specifically for “inability to perform my duties due to medical reasons”.

My medical team decided that I’ve suffered enough. I DECIDED I’VE SUFFERED ENOUGH. After over a decade of suffering through 7 failed career attempts as a result of Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, Panic Disorder, Severe Generalized Anxiety, and PTSD, my medical team said, if you value your health, you should seek medical retirement/disability. And that’s what I’ve been working on for over a year.

Wanna guess what happened when I stopped working? My stress levels dropped. My episodes stopped and my health began to rapidly restore itself. I was never hospitalized. As a result, I have no “official record” of these illnesses… This is a triumph, but it is being used against me to claim that I’m not sick enough and that now I’m just fine. I can assure you that I’m anything except “fine”. There are old records of my hospitalizations but the USDA refuses to look at them since they are older than 2 years. The USDA wants to see me hospitalized, dying, and utilizing money and medical resources NOW before they will consider me “disabled”. The USDA has gotten the criteria WRONG.

7+ failed career attempts since college. I already swallowed the pill of giving up working in private veterinary practice bc the stress is too much and I was constantly sick. I even worked retail for awhile and that was a stress nightmare. No matter where I go, what I try to do, if I attempt to work any type of job for any length of time, it eventually ends in illness…

You see, I DESERVE to live a happy and peaceful life in which I am free to choose NOT to do things which I KNOW will make me sick. I DESERVE to be allowed to avoid stress and triggers and PREVENT my episodes. I deserve the freedom and flexibility of time to listen to my body and rest it when it needs rest. I deserve to spend my free time doing things I know will improve my health rather than doing things that will cause me stress and affect my health negatively. Under no circumstances should I be put in the position to be forced to continue to “prove” the severity of my illness by living within that severity when it can be prevented. The severity of my illness has been proven multiple times but those records are apparently “too old” to be considered. They don’t care that I was hospitalized many times several years ago, they only care that I haven’t been hospitalized in the past 2 years. I’m not going to trigger an episode and go to the ER to prove myself.  I DESERVE NOT to be nearly dead by the time I’m recognized as medically disabled. I should NOT have to go through multiple life threatening relapses simply to prove that I shouldn’t be working.

When i work, I get sick… when i don’t I remain healthy. There’s your evidence. THAT’S what matters. And I have at least 7 prior failed career attempts in multiple and differing jobs over the past decade. Those are legal criteria which were ignored by the USDA…

The USDA has recently denied my application for medical retirement even though I meet ALL the criteria and then some. The asinine reasons they cited are as follows:

1. Because they refuse to look at medical records older than 2 years, and due to my PREVENTATIVE efforts, it’s been several years since I’ve been hospitalized.

2. Because I made good eye contact with my psychiatrists at my appointments…. (the utter stupidity of this citation as a reason for denial needs no further explanation to those with functional brains).

3. And most importantly, they used this very blog against me. My blog which has purpose to inspire and help others was used as a weapon against me….

How???

Since my blog mostly chronicles my improvements and doesn’t focus on my more difficult moments, it was used as a weapon against me to claim that I’m not really that sick after all… even though my most recent post was over a year ago.

They already fired me for “inability to perform due to medical reasons” and now they’re trying to pretend they didn’t already admit that I am unable to perform due to medical reasons.

I’m so ANGRY that the blog which I intend to help others is being utilized as a weapon against me!!!!

Intention #1 of my blog is to to bring awareness and factual information about Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome to the masses via the world wide web, potentially reaching millions in a matter of seconds and with a simple click and search.. 

Intention #2 of my blog is to share what works for me and to INSPIRE others with the disorder to do whatever it takes to PREVENT episodes and proclaim victory over this disorder.

The fact that I’ve learned to avoid triggers, improve my health in general, and treat episodes at home during an episode is a BLESSING and in no way whatsoever does it mean that I’m not suffering from a severely debilitating and potentially life threatening illness. It is the life threatening aspect which is the cause for concern and PREVENTION. Removing myself from the continual stress of a highly demanding job of performance was the RIGHT thing for me.

So there you have it. A bunch of dumbasses fired me for medical reasons after claiming no reasonable accommodations could be made for me. Then more dumbasses determined I’m not disabled – based on my blog posts and after refusing to look at and accept older medical records as valid information about my disorder. The USDA did not use my old medical records as evidence when making a determination, but rather they used a blog post i made nearly 2 years ago to document my remission to say that I’m not sick. There are about 100 obvious levels of FUCKED UP about that.

The intention of my blog is NOT to rant… or whine… or say “woe is me”… It is to highlight my personal accomplishments within the disorder and to share factual information about what happens during episodes and in between them.

My blog is being weaponized against me… but I may have a few weapons in my belt too… and we all know that I’m a fighter…

I’ve said what i needed to say here today. And with that, I hereby hope to RECLAIM the original intent of my blog to INSPIRE and inform you, and will continue to do that with future posts.