Latest Photos

These photos are from my birthday, my trip to London, and any other latest pics:

London:





















Birthday



presents from nikki

my best friend bree!

nikki, bree, and i

my sister acacia and i

Latest Pics:


photo taken at the oasis by mimi


my first tattoo: it's my daddy's name- august 8, 2009
My daddy has Parkinson's. Please pray for him.

Modeling Photos

cream vintage fashion show- july


lauren mckinley



john pesina

ricky ricky

kitsch fashion show- september














blurred perspectives photography


painting by dawn okoro- this painting was featured in an exhibit in chicago. BIG DEAL!
a girl at the art exhibit, emulating yours truly. so surreal.

Being Sick is Expensive

You never really consider how much money you're going to spend on health care until you're actually faced with a chronic illness, and then you have to scramble to figure things out. Since I STILL don't have a permanent position here at the firm, I have no health care insurance. My insurance with my parents ran out on my 24th birthday. So right now I am doing nothing significant to take care of my health. These are the things I would like to try:

1. Acupuncture (again, even though the last person rejected me because I was too hard of a case)
2. Chiropractic
3. Fibromyalgia Therapy (this includes glutathione breathing treatments, physical therapy, diet, etc.)
4. Vegan/Vegetarianism (maybe this will help, supposedly it's helped others)
5. McKinley Health Center- Fibromyalgia in Illinois- I would like to go there for as long as it takes for them to figure out what's wrong with me and how to properly approach this illness. I'm sure it would be very expensive though and I do want to graduate at some point...

These things all cost a lot of money, none of which I have. I owe my dad money, I owe my psychiatrist money, and I owe a friend money. All totaling almost $2,000. I hate owing people money. And I hate being poor. But most of all, I hate not having health insurance. Not having health insurance and having a chronic pain illness is like dying a slow death. Very slow.

I can feel my condition worsening now that I am not doing anything for my health. I feel more tired. I am more in pain, and I am more irritable, depressed, and angry because of the pain. I am going to start keeping a journal with me at all times where I will chronicle my pain and other symptoms every hour. That way, I will have an accurate record to show someone rather than just a subjective account, although that could be seen as subjective too. I wish my subjectivity could somehow be projected onto the doctors and other health care professionals who don't believe my condition.

Right now I am in about level 8 pain. It is mostly localized in my neck, back and shoulders. My neck is especially hurting and I am about to go warm up my neck warmer thingy in the microwave and put it on my neck. I have to go fill a parking meter for a client. I will post my latest modeling pics and pics from London in my next post.

Please pray for me.

Better Late Than Never

I'm so sorry I haven't written in such a long time. This will have to be a short entry as I am leaving work soon. This is my only computer access now since my laptop broke. That is the main reason why I have been so horrible with updating this blog.

I quit the job at The Athenian August 1st. I got a job at a law firm in mid-July and it paid much better than the restaurant job.

I am still a temporary employee at the firm, but hope to be permanent soon.

I recently went to London Oct. 3-11. It was an okay trip. I will have to get into that later. I did get to see my dear Baria and her absolutely gorgeous baby, Caleb. He's 1 yr. old, has blue eyes, chubby cheeks, and strawberry blonde hair. I miss him already. But I miss Baria more.

I am still single, childless, with no prospects of love on the horizon. Before you start making fun of me, please realize that the life I am living would be much easier with someone to care for and support me as my equal.

Now on to the important part. I feel I should make a statement about what the purpose of this blog is for. It is an outlet. pure and simple. it is an outlet for me to release the pain and suffering I am going through, hence the name "Hidden Suffering". If you don't like it, if it is too depressing for you, then please stop reading. It will continue to be depressing as long as I have an honest bone left in my body. I'm not going to put on a show and put on a happy face in this medium. I have to do that enough as it is, and it is very detrimental to my psychological well-being. I have to have at least one place to say how I really feel.

If you know someone else who has fibromyalgia and is dealing with it better than me, please send them my love. I am dealing with this shit the best that I can and I don't care if you think I'm being defensive or depressing. I don't know one person with a chronic pain condition who isn't struggling with depression. And for the record, I am not on any anti-depressants, nor am I in therapy. I wish I could afford therapy, but I cannot. I no longer have insurance, so my health care is suffering severely, and my physical, emotional and mental well-being with it.

I have been in a lot of pain lately. It feels like fire licking my muscles. Licking. Licking. Licking. Hahaha. Isn't that just lovely! Fire burning your muscles, constantly. every day. every. single. day. I have been getting very frequent headaches. I wake up and my whole body aches. My whole body is in pain, my neck and shoulders very stiff. I have taken to showering in the morning to relieve some of this. I wear a lot of Ben-Gay and White Flower Analgesic. But everyone complains of the smell when I wear it at work. So I don't wear it and I suffer in silence. God, there are worse things than having to smell a little ben-gay people! Well I have to go, I'll come back and revise spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors later.

Sorry for sounding mean and defensive and angry and mad at the world. I am all of those things. Perhaps one day I will not be. I am also loving, sweet, kind, nice, happy, and normal. It's just that no one remembers those things. They remember me being angry. I wish I could remember what it was like to not be in pain and to not be angry and sad all the time. But even before the accident, I remember feeling that way alot, but on a much smaller scale... okay i really gotta go now.