For as long as I can remember I have had a sensitivity to the cold, dust and stomach issues. When my youngest was little, I noticed he shouldn't have his chest exposed because I started hearing him cough compared to my oldest, he didn't have a problem with cold weather.
Youngest eating strawberries. Now I struggle to get him to eat them.
So this might be too much information but here is goes. In recent years my health has gotten worst maybe it is my environment, stress, quality of food and/or lack of exercise. I have issues and a lot of health issues. But I will start off with the most unexpected and most recent ones.
Speaking before and after having covid has been challenging. After getting covid it took several months to also regain my voice. It was just hard to speak for more than 5 minutes straight. Before getting covid, I remember one day I was on the phone most of the day talking to a variety of folks about various things. Literally all day on the phone, if I recall it was mostly work related and possibly the last call was a friend I do advocacy work with outside of the work I was doing. Yes I loved advocacy so much I do it on my off time/hours as well. Well by the end of the day my voice was noticeably hurting. It became hard to talk and when I did it was low in tone. I thought this might be normal but eventually I had to get it checked with a throat doctor. Another issue I have is with the cold it has always made me cough and I would always try to create warm air to breath in. So masks have been helpful. I live for cough drops. Come to find out from the speech therapist and throat doctor, when I talk I don't take in enough air. During 2020 my health insurance changed and this made me have to change speech therapist (not helpful mayor). All of this got difficult fast even after one session with two different speech therapists and I haven't revisited this, since.
My next issue has been somewhat addressed to some degree but still persistent. My long standing stomach issues. For the longest time I have had a stomach that needs to be wrapped especially if it is cold. In late 2021 was experiencing really bad bowel movements. Like daily. I had a scheduled colonoscopy in early January but realized when I got my booster shot during winter break with the kiddos I contracted covid. So that was canceled. Since then I have stayed away from milk and ice cream with milk. I think I am okay with cheese. So my bowel movements aren't an issue anymore but my stomach is still sensitive.
For all the mother's that ever said to their kids you ruined my bladder. Well I am somewhere between having stress incontinence and/or urinary incontinence. Needless to say it has gotten worst over the years to a point I can't be out long and I can't even protest like I use to.
I ran away from home at 17, had my first child at 18, then my second at 19. After years of addressing my kids needs. Regular appointments along with extra appointments to address my youngest speech delay and trying hard to find out why there were other extra challenges with no clear reason why. Later finding out he has autism. But because of all my focus on my kid's I didn't make a dental appointment for myself for years. And when I did I got shamed with the dentist I first picked. I had gum disease and have had two teeth pulled. And possibly need another pulled because it is now very unbalanced. My latest appointment was promising and the dentist said I had a lot less bleeding but I am always weary my teeth feel so sensitive while she is working on my mouth and while I eat and brush my teeth myself.
“Lets be real fruits and veggies don't keep bellies fuller longer than potatoes, pasta, bread and red meat.”
So what could have cause all this? Being a single parent on foodstamps (SNAP/food benefits). I love how middle class folks like to criticize my diet but I have to get poor quality food from food banks in order to stretch a dollar to feed two growing teens. Lets be real fruits and veggies don't keep bellies fuller longer than potatoes, pasta, bread and red meat. But as of lately my youngest has been missing an alarming amount of school days. My high school senior might not graduate because of it. So I have been trying hard to change his diet and make it more well rounded. A doctor has suggested it is constipation. While tracking his food and bowl movements we have mixed feelings if that is the case. And sadly with all this going on my kid has to worry about being evicted. He doesn't have college to look forward to. 12 years of school and worrying about his mental wellbeing because lets be real again school was never made for him. As I said before children should never feel stupid because they don't understand concepts they won't need or use as adults.
Better life, Better Health
I hope by sharing all this folks start understanding what it is like being poor and having health issues. So tired folks think just teach the kids how to eat when the whole family needs help with how to eat better. Better cooking equipment to more stamps available. Cooking lessons more access to better quality foods that doesn't involve me running around the city. Also unfair if I start working my food benefits is reduced. And don't get me started again about how bad the school lunches have been. Not sure how a banana is ruined. Again lets be real if this was a middle class issue, school lunches would be better tasting, amount and quality.
After some recent conversations I found out from a lawyer helping me about my mother's foreign property she talked about how folks going through a lot of trauma experience stomach issues and I never shared mine. I also was told recently it is a Asian thing to not drink extremely cold liquids. So these are my experiences and this is how it has effected me.
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