Previously I had been selling on Depop under the username slimelight. My account was shut down by admin due to what they considered a violation of sepulture in the art I create. I had made over 200 sales with over 100 of those being art creations, maintaining a feedback score of 4.9/5 stars. I also maintain an ebay account under the username ketoacidosic. I have been e-selling since 2006.
My biggest art project has been a work in progress starting back in 1993 when I was diagnosed at the age of 5 with autoimmune Type 1 Diabetes. I have decided to take my years of relevant experience and extracurricular research into a personal memoir of my life living with disease. As of fall 2024, the project is completed and available for purchase under the title Blind Spot: The Bitter Diabetic. Life is not perfect, and irreversible lessons are learned along the way. My story is about turning bitter into better. For your interest, an excerpt is provided below.
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I learned later what panretinal photocoagulation means. In order to stop the newly formed bad blood vessels in my retina from bursting and bleeding and furthering this blindness, a laser will be shot into my retinal tissue. It takes at least three rounds for each eye, one third at a time, to sear the surface and burn these neoplastic growths. I mean, I grew these myself didn’t i? Years of hyperglycemia caused insufficient tissue perfusion and sticky sugary red blood cells unable to transport oxygen to my eyes. So my body decided to produce something called Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in order to make their own blood vessels. Very tiny, much swelling. They aren’t supposed to be there. And yet they are, because I neglected my disease and caused the vessels to form as my body desperately tries to bring nutrients to my retinal tissue.
The shots of anti-VEGF come later. Today is only day 2 in my own atonement, and I have beta-dine dripping down my throat.
There was no appropriate time to ask if it was going to hurt. Of course it was going to hurt but you know what hurts more? The fact that you did this to yourself you silly girl, now you are here barely 30 years old and talk about staring down this face of reality, it becomes difficult but not impossible to ignore the fact that you are a terrible diabetic and now you are going to have a photocoagulating laser in your eye. Your eye tissue is going to be burned. Do you feel it yet?
The pain smarts and I can’t suppress my sob. I try my best but I must break these ladylike silences I have grown accustomed into falling and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts. My vision swells as if I am staring at the sun, staring so close and its so bright and yellow and painful, maybe im staring at even God himself, I focus on the sterile paper towel rack in the corner and pretend it is exploding into butterflies because once my vision fades, so does the pain. It doesn’t hurt anymore now that I can’t see.
I must admit, no mortality has fascinated me more than my own. It is my last vestige of control, my worst experiment, the reins I choose to choke myself with. The exam arrives before the lesson does, as it always does. Breathe, bite your teeth, you can get through this. You have to. I know I have to. But my god do I ever so much not want to. I wish I could smell my cauterized eye tissue. My mouth is full of unvoiced sobs. I gnash my chewing gum into tiny tiny pieces.
The elderly patients with their macular degeneration stare curiously at me in the darkened waiting room while we contemplate our dilated eyes. Why is she here? This young woman? Poor thing. Maybe its drugs. See kids don’t do drugs or you’ll end up like this girl here. Make sure you go to college, or you’ll end up like her. Eat the crust on your sandwich, grow up big and be big smart. I ask the eye technicians for copies of my OCT scans on each visit. I like witnessing proof of both progress and decline.
Sometimes the other patients are funny.
“I’m just worried about Mom’s bladder control.”
“They fed me powdered egg in the hospital, because I got that air-vent Covid.”
“They say this doctor’s the best. He sure smells good.”
“I want to go see my chickens.”
“They got us jammed like sardines in here.”
“it’s a Christmas Miracle.”
I try to have my own fun. Each visit, I am asked by the technicians when I am getting a flu shot. I tell them I am afraid of needles.
Today’s technician shines his light into my pupils, checking for reflexivity.
“Everyone has such beautiful eyes.”
I am sitting here because I destroyed them.
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