WTF Is Wrong With Me: This Time It's Actually PHYSICAL

I was ravaged by a weird creepy virus thing and I can’t believe my body is as dramatic as I am.

Even when sick as hell, werk.

In 2023, I moved into what felt like a sanctuary of an apartment in East Williamsburg, where the fire hydrants are painted like the Italian flag, my neighbor was an old man who watered the plants a suspicious amount of times a day, and I was dead fucking set on a flamingo themed kitchen which I materialized in like, two days - it was, dare I say, flamazing (Jane hates portmanteaus so I decided to add the most egregious one ever right from the top just ‘cause) [Flamazing is so bad it's good - approved! -Jane].

I was moving in with my best friend Dayna and we had a room that we deemed “Fun Girl Salon” that was open to any gender but you had to embrace the fuzzy shag red walls and our matching vanities we got on clearance from Amazon. There was a tiny fake chandelier, heart-shaped shag rugs, a Mod Podge collage wall, neon lights, and 1,000,000,000 fire hazards. 

 Here’s the cheap peel and stick wallpaper that I didn't properly line up but somehow looks iconic.

One month into living there, I got a cold. I started coughing, like, all the time. A deep guttural harrowing cough. Six months later, the cough was still there, with an additional 10 pounds, migraines (I’m an IBS girl, not a migraine girl!), daily bloody noses that would make me a walking biohazard at any given moment, and zero energy.  

And then it hit my skin. It started with a little itch on my knuckle — a patch of something I ignored, thinking a Brooklyn cockroach bit me or put its cigarette out on me or something. But then I started waking up with open sores on my ears. Then my neck. Then my scalp. Then my legs. You get it.

If I get a haircut too short, I go catatonic for a week and have to chant daily affirmations that I’m serving Joan Jett and not rockstar Plankton. So when I touched the back of my head one day and felt a patch of scalp that felt like what best be described as a horse's nose, I had a complete nervous breakdown. My hair was gone. Disappeared. Out of my head.

Of course, I was going to doctors throughout this. ENTs, primaries, dermatologists, holistic doctors, and I heard the same thing every time: “stress,” or “something was going around,”  or the most infuriating, “this is what happens as you get older.” I JUST TURNED 29. Be so fucking for real. I know we age and things change but I am fairly certain one doesn’t just… stop working the second they come to the gate of 30. 

If you thought for two seconds I’m humble enough to show you any rash or weird shit you don’t get me. I also fully don’t have any pics of the rash because I couldn’t look at it without crying :(

After my 90,000th appointment, I was frantically googling other options. I saw “functional medicine.” Sure. Fuck it. I booked the next available appointment with a functional doctor who apparently balances holistic, Eastern, and Western medicine. Or something. I don’t know, I just needed help and was willing to try anything. One appointment and 27 vials of blood later, I was tested for everything under the sun, and waiting for the results.